Not seen live in the UK since Wembley Arena 2008, after a long break Tarkan is set to return to Britain to light up the stage at the Apollo Hammersmith on 6th October. For those not familiar with the multi-million album selling megastar, Tarkan was born in Alzey, Germany, on 17 October 1972. One of […]
The passing last year of Ara Güler, one of the greatest photojournalists of our time, at the age of 90 was mourned worldwide. His talent for documenting the people and places around him earned Güler many accolades. Today, his incredible archive bears testament to a bygone era and the huge transformation Turkey has undergone, immortalising […]
Habibi Funk returns for his quarterly residency at the Jazz Cafe in early August with guest selector Kornelia Binicewicz aka Ladies On Records. Originally from Krakow, Poland, anthropologist turned DJ Kornelia has been living in Istanbul since 2015, where she has been curating an incredible collection of music recorded by lesser known female artists in […]
House-heads are slowly but surely discovering the sublime music of Aleksandir, the Istanbul-born DJ, producer and co-founder of label Artesian Sounds. The rising star, who spends part of his time in London, has been in demand ever since his debut album The Turtle Nipper (Blind Jacks Journey) dropped three years ago, showcasing his fresh take on […]
It’s a warm weekday lunchtime in May when I meet Hassan Redif (aka Hass or J Junior) and Bekir Remzi (aka Ramsey) in the bar of Trent Park Country Club, located at the far end of the Piccadilly Line in Oakwood. The pair are relaxed and in casual attire, with Ramsey tapping at his watch […]
UPDATED, Aug 2019: concert postponed to February 2020 Okay Temiz is a musical icon who has been at the forefront of multi-cultural music, blending European instruments with their Turkish counterparts to create a unique joyful synthesis of the two. This summer, he brings his awesome sounds to London. Born in Istanbul in 1939, Temiz […]
This is story-telling at its brilliant best. Personal, incisive, at times funny, yet also sad and highly thought-provoking. Dreams Die Hard also contains the best-ever explanation of Brexit courtesy of the good old British fry-up. A one-woman show, written and performed by Rachel Karafistan (whose grandfather Mehmet Karafistan was from Yeşilırmak, Cyprus) with direction and […]
Fans of novelist Elif Shafak don’t have much longer to wait before they can get their hands on her powerful new novel ‘10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World’. The 368-page book in English hits the shops on 6 June and previews are already raving about it. Historian Peter Frankopan describes the book as, […]
Next month, London gets to see one of Turkish pop’s hottest new stars: Buray Hoşsöz. The Lefkoşa born singer-songwriter shot to prominence with his critically acclaimed debut album 1 Şişe Aşk [1 Bottle of Love] in 2015, which won him 21 awards and a legion of fans in the process. Buray cemented his place as the […]
A portrait of Ottoman ruler Süleyman the Magnificent has been sold for more than £5.3 million at an auction in London. The 500-year-old painting went under the hammer on Wednesday, 1 May, for a total of £5,323,500. That was more than 15 times the initial estimate of £250,000 to £350,000, according to auction house Sotheby’s. […]
