Made in Almanya: The Birth of Turkish Rap

Abstract

Turkish rap was born in the late 1980s in the transnational meeting of two mobile groups of people: African American soldiers stationed in Germany during the waning days of the Cold War and the period immediately after its end, and second-generation Turks in Germany, the children of economic migrants. This chapter explores the early history of Turkish hip hop in Germany, showing how second-generation Turkish migrant youth used rap music as a vehicle for constructing a sense of identity in the context of systematic marginalization within German society. As in youth cultures of leisure throughout the world, music and dance played significant roles in the lives of migrant youth. Turkish rap in Germany can be seen as a subcategory within the broader genre of migrant rap that emerged in the late 1980s, including other significant groups such as Advanced Chemistry.