‘We felt that we are one’: How Turkish musicians welcomed Syrian refugees
When Mahdi Alkilani first arrived in Istanbul, aged 24, he couldn’t speak Turkish. Music was his way of communicating.
The musician, producer and rapper came to Turkey in 2014 after being arrested by the regime in Syria and accused of smuggling weapons, which he denies. He believes he was one of only two men to be released out of 60 detainees; the rest died in prison.
He panicked about how to make a living and survive in a new country until seeing a video of a busker on Istiklal Avenue, one of Istanbul’s most famous streets. He went there with his late father’s daf, a Middle Eastern frame drum, and began to play.
Having grown up in a musical family in Homs, Syria, he says music “wasn’t really a thing I learned. It was something I always had within me since I was a child.”
Despite his daf being confiscated by the Turkish police (musicians must have a permit to perform but, according to Alkilani, there is no clear way to get one), he persevered and eventually found a community and a source of opportunities. “I had another 10 instruments confiscated over the next two years, to the point that I became friends with the policemen who were coming to stop us from playing,” he says, laughing.
It was through busking that he met a friend of the Turkish band Debdebe and got his big break when he was invited to perform with them. The band are a trio who play a mix of electronic and Turkish music. Alkilani first joined them to rap in Arabic at a gig in Istanbul in 2019.
“After we finished, people said they really enjoyed it even though they didn’t understand what I was singing,” he says. “They understood my body language and my tone of voice and the intonation.” [Continue reading…]