Tarkan

Latest Release

Essential Albums

  • Ahde Vefa
    Ahde Vefa
    Ahde Vefa

    Each swirling rhythm and lustrous vocal line pulls you towards complete entrancement.

  • Karma
    Karma
    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.

  • Ölürüm Sana
    Ölürüm Sana
    Ölürüm Sana

    1997

  • Aacayipsin
    Aacayipsin
    Aacayipsin

    Released in 1994, the second album by Tarkan established the singer as a star not just in Türkiye but Western Europe—a rare feat. Lush, polished but playful, the music here splits the difference between international pop and Turkic traditions, resulting in slyly progressive hybrids like “Şeytan Azapta,” which opens with a folk march before steering into something that sounds like Prince; or “Eyvah,” which blends Middle Eastern music with clubby, electronic textures—a sound that modernized the past without breaking from it.

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About Tarkan

A superstar in Europe and in his homeland of Turkey, dance-pop composer Tarkan mixes modern beats with Middle Eastern melodies and arrangements. Though he had been a fixture in the Turkish dance scene for a few years, his 1999 single "Simarik" made him an overnight success in European clubs and led to a wider release of his self-titled album from that year. Tarkan included songs from his two previous Turkey-only releases and repeated the success of the single; in mid-2000, it was released in the U.S. by Universal Music Latino. ~ Heather Phares

FROM
Alzey, Germany
BORN
October 17, 1972
GENRE
Pop

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