ANNE ELLINGSEN (University of Oslo, Department of Music and Theatre, Oslo, Norway)

Ibrahim Tatlises and the Popular Music Genre Arabesk in Turkey

Outlines features the so-called "Arabesk debate" in Turkey, a heated debate centering around the country's most popular music style, arabesk. Until 1992 Turkish authorities argued that the genre, which according to myth originated in the slum areas of the large cities, was a threat to public health.

Consequently, arabesk was banned from all the official media channels. Still for decades the musical style has only increased its popularity in the country. The "Arabesk debate" points to questions related to religion, gender, ethnicity and class, and is by its critics seen as a threat towards core principles of the Kemalist state.

The paper, based on the fieldwork done mainly among arabesk fans and musicians, focuses on the difference in the reception of the Kurdish singer and the former construction worker Ibrahim Tatlises, and of the other, more glamorous arabesk artists, such as the immensely popular transvestite Zeki Müren. It is argued that the genre cannot be defined as the one musically or sociologically radically different from other types of music in Turkey. Thus, arabesk must be seen as a way of talking about rather than performing or experiencing music.