Karma

By the time the Turkish singer Tarkan released Karma, he wasn’t just a star but an ambassador: One song here (“Taş”) morphed into the anthem for the Turkish national soccer team on their entry into 2002’s World Cup; another (“Hüp”) was used in promotional videos by the country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Musically, Tarkan was moving further into the melting pot, embracing the compact slickness of club-pop (“Kuzu Kuzu”), techno (“Uzak”), and even Latin music (“Her Nerdeysen,” “Sen Başkasın”) while still retaining a distinctly Middle Eastern character.