NEZ’s Turkish Delight and the cross between Western and Middle Eastern sound and aesthetics
Turkish musician and dancer NEZ’s 2002 debut album ‘Turkish Delight’ crosses between the sounds of techno, oriental belly dance music and electronic pop while introducing a never before seen club-girl belly dancer aesthetic in Middle Eastern music. Playing her music and dancing across events right from when she was 18 Nez first started working on the songs and the whole concept by herself. A little later she formed her own band called The Turkish delights. It was not until she was discovered while performing original material to the prominent yet infamous Turkish music producer Erol Köse around 2001 that she started to record these ideas which would later be compiled in the debut album ‘Turkish Delight’.
NEZ was an alien to the Turkish audiences. She seemed very confident in her performance style which was adapted from traditional belly dancing routines and Ottoman Harem aesthetics mixed with well known traditional melodies on top of electro-pop and techno productions supported by her smooth and sultry English and Turkish vocals. What she did was a statement that was misunderstood and panned when it was first out even though she managed to become an overnight sensation and topped the charts with her first single ‘Sakın Ha’.
NEZ never officially released another piece of work and moved to London where a part of her family lives after the promotional run of the album. Because of the provocative sound and image she portrayed she faced multiple threats and mostly became a controversial figure in the media. I find this album to be way ahead of its time and can see the reasons of backlash. First and foremost NEZ deconstructs what it means to be a female performer by completely ignoring the traditional image of a belly dancer who mostly in Turkish media is just a dancer who doesn’t talk or do anything else but only there to entertain men and makes it a popstar who sings, produces and becomes her own unique thing. I want to talk about how much of a forward thinking feminist move this is and not just for music. Secondly the album creates a sonic atmosphere where traditional and melancholic Turkish scales mixes with uptempo techno and electronic music productions which was never before done by any artist to that date on this scale. While being innovative the work was mostly misunderstood and under appreciated, the audiences couldn’t really understand what this all meant. I will talk about the innovations and thought that went into the musical production of the album.
Lastly I will put all of these points under ‘syncretism’ which is a theme mentioned in the album. Syncretism means to merge and or assimilate traditions together and creating something new out of it. This is mostly with mixing and merging theology and culture. One of the examples include the 16th century emperor Mughal Akbar who created a new belief system by mixing traditions and elements from Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. One of the final songs on the album being called ‘Ethnic Synthetic’ is not a total coincidence. NEZ sings over a techno beat while the song is a cover of ‘Popcorn’ composed by Gershon Kingsley one of the first songs to be recorded and released with Moog synthesiser with traditional melodies NEZ talks over the song ‘dreaming is the only way to success’.