{"id":184770,"date":"2018-08-20T18:00:53","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/berlin030.de\/?p=184770"},"modified":"2018-08-20T18:00:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T16:00:53","slug":"vorzeige-tuerke-und-rapper-chefket-auf-dem-flachdach-bei-gefuehlt-100-grad-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/2018\/08\/20\/vorzeige-tuerke-und-rapper-chefket-auf-dem-flachdach-bei-gefuehlt-100-grad-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish Ambassador or Rapper? [030] meets Chefket on the hottest flat roof in town | Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Cat on a Hot Tin Roof\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s a film. The modern version: \u2018Chefket on a hot flat roof\u2019. 39 degrees, but feels like 100. The city is groaning. Up on Universal\u2019s roof, it\u2019s like being on a hob cranked up to full blast. A scorching interview!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Burn, baby, burn!<\/h3>\n

Our feet are burning\u2014thankfully we\u2019ve got shoes on. Chefket\u2019s wearing aviators, a Hawaiian shirt, shorts. We tuck ourselves into a corner with him. Shade! Someone had the idea to put up a gazebo on the roof at Universal by the Oberbaum Bridge. Cheers to that hero! We\u2019re talking with Chefket, son of Turkish immigrants from Heidenheim and rap poet, about his new album. \u2018Alles Liebe (Nach dem Ende des Kampfes)\u2019 has been out since 17 August, following his debut album \u2018Nachtmensch\u2019, which made the top ten in the album charts back in 2015. The new record also features rap greats like Marsimoto (aka Marteria), Sido and Crackaveli. Chefket\u2019s heading out on tour\u2014he\u2019ll be at Astra on 5 October. His track \u2018Sowieso\u2019 is available on YouTube, as you can see. But first, you should read our interview. Here it is.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m simply a German who speaks good Turkish.
\n<\/em>– Chefket<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You\u2019ve become a well-known rapper in Germany, you must enjoy living here\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks for letting me live here (laughs). Thanks for always mispronouncing my name. That meant I had my stage name straightaway, didn\u2019t have to look far. But honestly, I wouldn\u2019t want to live anywhere else.<\/p>\n

\"Chefket,
Great reception up here! Chefket on the flat roof. Photo: \u00a9 Franz Mangel \/ [030] Magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Are we down with Erdogan \u2013 or not?<\/h3>\n

Do you ever feel you\u2019re made a role model, a figurehead for integration?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You really have to be careful whether you let that happen to you. On \u2018Entscheide du\u2019, my verse starts: \u2018It\u2019s Chefket, not your model Turk rap shit, I come in like this so there\u2019s no confusion. I\u2019ve got the best of both cultures inside me. If I wanted to be really on the nose, I\u2019d pose with sp\u00e4tzle and chai. Bilingual with two, trilingual with ten. At home in two countries and I can understand everything. Yet many try to take the piss while I\u2019m splashing about with colours. They come along and say, \u201cJust one colour would be better.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

You must have been asked about Mesut \u00d6zil plenty of times, since you\u2019ve got Turkish roots. After the World Cup, people were saying \u00d6zil was one of the reasons we went out so early.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s such rubbish. There\u2019s honestly no point talking about it anymore. If we\u2019re talking football, then we should discuss the whole team, who just weren\u2019t any good. Why is this suddenly such a big topic? I really don\u2019t get it. Are we down with Erdogan or not? Is it Erdogan\u2019s pull or not? (laughs) I haven\u2019t quite figured it out myself.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got loads of mates who are sick to death of always being asked: \u2018When are you going back?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Your album\u2019s called \u2018Alles Liebe (nach dem Ende des Kampfes)\u2019: I immediately wondered \u2013 which struggle? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that long journey you\u2019ve put behind you since you started making music, not really knowing where things would go. I chose music, and rap has been the form with which I somehow learnt to write\u2014where writing takes centre stage. I can use that skill in every genre I work with now.<\/p>\n

Do you think after the World Cup he was singled out because he\u2019s got a migration background?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What did they call him: \u2018Turkish pig\u2019 and other things. It\u2019s obvious they really laid into him. You just have to call that racism. And it\u2019s always interesting\u2014release an album as someone with Turkish roots and you\u2019re bound to get asked about it. Not reduced to it, but it comes up. And it\u2019s interesting that, just because someone shares your background and behaves a certain way, all of a sudden you\u2019re expected to have an opinion on it. I reckon it was mostly a silly summer news story. No one really knew what to say. Personally, I\u2019d have found it more interesting if they\u2019d talked a bit about the NSU files, which are now sealed for 130 years.<\/p>\n

When I think of \u2018Fremd\u2019, the track on your new album\u2014there\u2019s a line: \u2018I\u2019ll always be a stranger here\u2019. Is that your statement, or is that what others think?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s definitely both. The song is bigger than me, really. It could be about a refugee arriving in a new country, or an American living in Germany who\u2019s constantly asked when he\u2019s going \u2018back to the States\u2019. I\u2019ve got loads of friends who say it really winds them up, always being asked that. Talking with each other rather than about each other\u2014that\u2019s the way forward, I reckon. It helps break down a few prejudices. As for the bigger world politics, we all feel a bit helpless and very small\u2014but actually, we\u2019re bigger than we think if we focus on our own environment, and there we really can change a lot.<\/p>\n

Model Turk: Nah. Turkey specialist: not really.<\/h3>\n

Do you sometimes feel more like a Turkish ambassador than a rapper?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was little, yeah. I used to pretend, at school\u2014I was the Turkey expert for the teacher. So I had to read up so I even knew the answers. But that\u2019s a long time ago now. These days, I\u2019m simply a German who speaks good Turkish.<\/p>\n

What does love mean to you in everyday life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s when you see an old lady struggling to find her keys in her bag, so you ask if everything\u2019s all right and help her carry her shopping up to her flat. Then you see her place is a right tip, so you offer your number so she can ring whenever she needs. We used to have neighbours\u2014an elderly couple, no kids. When my parents were at work, this couple would look after my sisters. That was Mr and Mrs Zimmermann.<\/p>\n

How\u2019s the tour shaping up?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tour\u2019s coming up soon. It\u2019s nearly all sold out. Which is fantastic. We\u2019re playing Berlin\u2014at Astra, 5 October.<\/p>\n

Thanks so much for the chat.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo: \u00a9 Franz Mangel \/ [030] Magazine\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Cat on a Hot Tin Roof\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s a film. The modern version: \u2018Chefket on a hot flat roof\u2019. 39 degrees, but feels like \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":185786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[965,5],"tags":[151,564,962,963,520,964,560,178,702,142,521,475],"class_list":["post-184770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview-musik","category-musik","tag-151","tag-album","tag-alles-liebe","tag-chefket","tag-deutschrap","tag-gespraech","tag-hip-hop","tag-interview","tag-magazin","tag-musik","tag-rap","tag-universal","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berlin030.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}