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Turkey

Stripped of his citizenship, 1983

Cem Karaca

Cem Karaca worked through a string of Turkish rock bands: Apaşlar, Kardaşlar, a stint in Moğollar recording 1972's Namus Belası, then his own Dervişan and Edirdahan, whose 1978 album Safinaz is often called Turkey's first rock opera. He fused the bağlama and Anatolian folk melody into a heavier, more openly political rock than almost anyone else in Turkey was trying. In 1979 he played a May Day concert for Turkish guest workers in Munich. A tabloid photo from that show was later used to paint him as a separatist sympathizer, and after the 1980 military coup he stayed in West Germany instead of answering a summons home. Turkey formally revoked his citizenship on January 6, 1983. He spent eight years in exile before a 1987 amnesty let him return, and he is remembered simply as the father of Anatolian rock. He died of heart failure in Istanbul in 2004.

Imprisoned three times for her lyrics

Selda Bağcan

Selda Bağcan was studying engineering physics at Ankara University when her recording career took off in 1971. She set Anatolian folk melody and biting social lyrics against rock arrangements, and within a few years she was a hero to Turkey's left. The 1980 military coup turned that into a liability. She was jailed three times between 1981 and 1984 for lyrics the state read as inflammatory, then had her passport confiscated. It was restored only in 1987, with help from international pressure that included WOMAD's organizers and Peter Gabriel. "It was because of my lyrics," she said later, "not because I was a terrorist." A 2006 reissue of her 1976 debut LP by Finders Keepers Records brought her a new audience, one that already knew her work from samples in tracks by Mos Def and Dr. Dre. The songs that got her jailed had only gotten louder.

Ankara teenagers, covering Zappa

Hayvanlar Alemi

Three Ankara schoolfriends, all born in 1985, started Hayvanlar Alemi in 1999 as a teenage hard-rock covers band. The name translates to "The Animal Kingdom," and they picked it because "hayvan" doubles as a Turkish insult, a small sign they wanted to sound like nobody else. Their real sound arrived a few years later, when an attempt at a faithful Frank Zappa cover fell apart into improvisation. After that the covers stopped, and in their place came original instrumental music that runs Middle Eastern and Turkish folk scales through psychedelic and stoner rock. 2014's Twisted Souvenirs got them praise from The Wire and The Guardian, along with steady festival touring across Europe. A decade and a half in, the three friends were still finding new ways to sound odd together.

The Collection