Mahalle (Arabic: محلة‎‎ maḥallä) (abbreviated mh. or mah.) is an Arabic word, adopted into Turkish which is variously translated as district, quarter, ward, or "neighborhood." ^[1] It is an official administrative unit in many Middle Eastern countries. In the Ottoman Empire the mahalle was the smallest administrative entity. The mahalle is generally perceived to play an important role in identity formation, with the local mosque and the local coffee house as the main social institutions. Mahalle lies at the intersection of private family life and the public sphere. Important community-level management functions are performed through mahalle solidarity, such as religious ceremonies, life-cycle rituals, resource management, conflict resolution, and the like.^[2]

The mahalle is represented in the municipality and government by its Muhtar. 'Muhtarlik' (the office of Muhtar) has been designed as the smallest administrative office, with representative and enforcement powers at the local level. However, in some cases, the muhtar acts as not only the representative of the government towards the community, but also the head of the community towards the government; subverting official government policies through intricate face-to-face mahalle-level relationships.^[2]

See also[link]

• Mahalla

References[link]

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Ahmet Kaya (October 28, 1957^[1] – November 16, 2000) Kurdish singer from Malatya, Turkey, who died on November 16, 2000 in exile in Paris.^[2] He formerly sang in Turkish. Some of his most popular songs include Ayrılık Vakti, Söyle, Ağladıkça, Oy Benim Canım, Birazdan Kudurur Deniz, Arka Mahalle, Nereden Bileceksiniz, Hani Benim Gençliğim, Yakarım Geceleri and Şafak Türküsü.

Career[link]

Ahmet Kaya was the fifth and last child of his Kurdish father, who had immigrated from Adıyaman to Malatya, and Turkish mother.^{[citation needed]} He first encountered music at the age of six when his father bought him a bağlama for his birthday. Ahmet Kaya worked for a while as a taxi driver in Istanbul before becoming well known as a singer in the mid-1980s.

His first album, Ağlama Bebeğim, was released in 1985. His popularity continued to rise into the 1990s when in 1994 he released the album Şarkılarım Dağlara which was sold a record 2.8 million copies. All of his 1990 albums to chart-toppers.

During his career he recorded approximately 20 albums and was known for his protest music and positions on social justice. Recurring themes in his songs are love towards one's mother, sacrifice, and hope.

Awards controversy[link]

At 10 February 1999 televised annual music awards ceremony, SHOW TV, at which he was to be named Musician of the Year, he spoke out about his Kurdish background and said that he wanted to produce music in his native Kurdish as naturally as he does in Turkish. He announced that he had recorded a song in Kurdish (Karwan, released on the Hoşçakalın Gözüm album in 2001) and intended to produce a video to accompany it. Because of making the announcement he was treated like a monster by some famous singers, actors, producers, journalists after his talk. This was led by Serdar Ortac who years later apologized for his behavior and the crowd also started singing the Turkish national anthem. This was an incident which led to a prosecution case which made him leave Turkey.^[3]

Exile and death[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Kaya went to France in June 1999 escaping various charges arising from his political views.^{[citation needed]} Among them were the accusations that he had performed in front of a poster for the Kurdistan Workers Party at a 1993 concert in Germany, and that he had made statements in support of Abdullah Öcalan.^[4] In March 2000 he was sentenced in absentia to three years and nine months in prison on the charge of spreading separatist propaganda.^{[citation needed]} Later, however, the visual media central to allegations demonstrating Kaya in front of the poster was proven to be forged.^[5][6] He died of a heart attack in Paris in 2000, at the age of 43, and is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery.

Discography[link]

References[link]

• CNN's report about his death
• Interview with Ahmet Kaya
• Interview with Gülten Kaya, Ahmet Kaya's wife
• Documentary about Ahmet Kaya

Further reading[link]

• Ferzende, Kaya. Başım Belada. TR: Gam. ISBN 975-6628-19-7. http://kitap.antoloji.com/kitap.asp?kitap=30889. 

External links[link]

• (French) His biographical information by Kurdish Institute of Paris
• Asya Radyo :Devlet Ahmet Kaya'dan özür dilemeli haberi...
• Yasaktube : Ahmet Kaya Videos
• Nabervideo : All Ahmet Kaya Videos
• YouVido: Ahmet Kaya Videolar

Cem Yılmaz (born 23 April 1973 in Istanbul, Turkey) is a Turkish stand-up comedian, actor and filmmaker and cartoonist, best known for his films G.O.R.A. (2004), A.R.O.G (2008) and Yahşi Batı (2010), who has won two Sadri Alışık awards for his roles in Organize İşler (2005) and The Magician (2006).

Biography[link]

While studying at the Department of Tourism and Hotel Management of Boğaziçi University, he started drawing comics for the Turkish humor magazine Leman. In August 1995 he did his first stand-up comedy show in "Leman Culture Center" performing with no serious career intentions as a comedian. However, after the positive response of the audience, he continued his show to attract larger crowds in Beşiktaş Cultural Center where he has appeared in over a thousand stand-up comedy shows since, becoming so popular that tickets have sold for 250TL (approx. US$140). His movie career started in 1998 with a co-starring role in the comedy Everything's Gonna Be Great (1999), directed by Ömer Vargı, and continued with a role in Vizontele (2001), directed by Yılmaz Erdoğan and Ömer Faruk Sorak. He achieved his greatest success by starring in and writing big-budget science-fiction parody G.O.R.A. (2004), also directed by Ömer Faruk Sorak, which despite spending several years in production because of financial and other technical problems became a box-office hit and, according to Rekin Teksoy, "showed that popular cinema was successful in appealing to wide audiences".^[2] He followed this success with a starring role in the comedy Organize İşler (2005), also directed by Yılmaz Erdoğan, for which he won Best Supporting Actor at the 11th Sadri Alışık Awards, and his directorial debut with The Magician (2006), co-directed by Ali Taner Baltacı, for which he won Best Actor at the 34th Brussels International Independent Film Festival and 12th Sadri Alışık Awards. He has since repeated his box office success with a sequel to G.O.R.A. called A.R.O.G (2008), also co-directed by Ali Taner Baltacı, and comedy Western parody called Yahşi Batı (2010), directed by Ömer Faruk Sorak. That same year, he co-starred, alongside veteran actor Şener Şen, in the police drama Hunting Season (2010), written and directed by Yavuz Turgul, and made a special appearance in drama Zephyr (2010), written and directed by Belma Baş.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Cem Yılmaz at the Internet Movie Database
• Cem Yılmaz's official website
• Turkish Cem Yılmaz's Biography

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Şebnem Ferah (born April 12, 1972 in Yalova, Turkey) is a Turkish singer and song-writer. She was the lead vocalist of the all-female hard rock band Volvox^[1] until 1994, after which she went on to pursue an illustrious solo career. Her music style varies from pop rock to hard rock though her later albums have progressively incorporated more of the hard rock sound.

Early life and Volvox[link]

Şebnem Ferah was born on 12 April 1972 in Yalova to ethnic Turkish immigrant parents from Skopje of the Republic of Macedonia. She first took solfeggio and instrument lessons from her father who was also a teacher. She grew up listening to her father's Rumelian folk songs played with bağlama, mandolin and piano.

She got her first guitar when she was in the first year in boarding at Namık Sözeri Lisesi of Bursa. She got acoustic lessons. During her second year, she hired a studio with her friends and formed the group Pegasus. The group had their first stage appearance during a rock festival in Bursa, in 1987. After a while, Pegasus disbanded. In 1988 Şebnem formed Volvox with four friends of her that they named after the microorganism known as volvox, which they encountered in a biology lesson. In 1989 she provided the voice of Ariel for The Little Mermaid. She also reprised the role in the redub.

After graduating from high school, she attended Middle East Technical University, studying economics, and moved to Ankara with her sister. During this time, she met Özlem Tekin, who has later become another recognized pop-rock musician in Turkey, and Özlem joined Volvox. Volvox could not practice for a year and a half because the members experienced a hardship with coming together, with the other members except Özlem and Şebnem living in Istanbul. In her second year at the university, Şebnem changed her mind about being an economist; instead she dropped out and moved back to Istanbul.

In Istanbul, she attended classes on English language and literature at the Istanbul University. For two years she performed in various bars with Volvox until dissolution of the band in 1994.

Solo career[link]

Although short-lived, Volvox gave Ferah what she needed: attention from professionals. Turkish diva Sezen Aksu and Aksu's writing/recording partner Onno Tunç saw Volvox on television. In a short time, Ferah sang back vocals for Sezen Aksu.

In 1996, Ferah released her first album Kadın, which contained some of her best songs, Vazgeçtim Dünyadan, Yağmurlar, Bu Aşk Fazla Sana, and Fırtına to name a few. They featured a rather polished and clean production, possibly the effect of producer İskender Paydaş; these came off much differently from how she would later perform the songs live. Kadın was a huge hit and lots of club and arena gigs followed its release.

Three years later, Ferah came into the scene with her second album, Artık Kısa Cümleler Kuruyorum. She was working with the same production team of Paydaş and members of Pentagram, but she had mostly broken free of artificial synths that time. Being a decent rock album, it was more introverted due to death of Sebnem's sister prior to its release. With less catchy songs, Ferah also started to create a fan base who would sing and feel all her lyrics rather than a following who would only memorize the hits and ignore the rest.

In 2001, Ferah came up with a more acoustic third album, Perdeler, two years after her father died at 1999 İzmit earthquake. Apart from the lead single Sigara, Perdeler fell short of creating hits. She also collaborated with Finnish band Apocalyptica on the title track.

Her next step was the fourth album "Kelimeler Yetse (If words would suffice)", which was released in 2003. The album was a low point in her career although it included "Ben Şarkımı Söylerken (While I'm Singing My Song)" and "Mayın Tarlası (Mine Field)."

In 2005, she released her fifth studio album Can Kırıkları, produced by Tarkan Gözübüyük. The album showcased her heavier side and was yet her most distortion-friendly outing. After her nationwide concert tour, a live CD/DVD 10 Mart 2007 Istanbul Konseri was released in 2007.

In December 2009, she released her sixth and recent studio album Benim Adım Orman, features slow rock song like Bazı Aşklar and Eski while there were hard rock song like, Merhaba and Mahalle. This album indicates her point of view for rock music.

Personnel[link]

Şebnem's current group consists of Buket Doran (bass guitar), Metin Türkcan (electric guitar), Aykan İlkan (drums), Ozan Tügen (keyboard)and Ceren Akyıldız (vocalist) who have been performing with her in studio and on stage since her 3rd album, Perdeler.And currently Serdar Barçın is joined the group as a flutist.

Discography[link]

References[link]