Social characteristics of arabesk rap players (Example of Malatya)

Music is an element of culture that has influenced daily life since the existence of humanity and reflects the traditions of societies. Various music genres have emerged in different societies and different periods until today and these genres have become a symbol of the culture in which they emerged. Each genre has interacted with different cultures just like other factors of the culture to which it belongs. Accordingly, arabesque music, which developed with the influence of Arab culture in Turkish society and contains concepts such as fatalism, sadness and rebellion, became a type of music accepted by the lower and middle socio-economic level individuals of the society. In the 1960s with the increase of industrialization in the Turkish society, the condensation of migrations from villages to cities increased the demand for arabesque music. Arabesque music was adopted by individuals living in metropolitan cities but not urbanized; it was not accepted by the other segments of society. This alienation of arabesque music has become one of the mainstream music in Turkey by the structural changes in arabesque music over time and decreased with the gentrification of this music genre. The rap music which emerged in the United States of America in the 1970s has become a type of music preferred by individuals at the lower socio-economic level (which develops within the society) just like the arabesque music. In these years, while the entertainment sector in the United States has developed rapidly, the majority of the black people lived under economically challenging conditions in the ghettos outside the city. Situations like gang fights and drug sales were normalized in the ghettos with high crime rates. Developing rap music in such an environment provided young people in the ghetto an opportunity to get away from their living conditions. In the beginning the rap music was an unwanted music genre with its harsh discourse, including slang, blasphemy, sexuality and rebellion then by time it got purified from its harsh discourses and has become a part of popular culture and one of the main currents by spreading all over the world. Arabesque rap music developed with the interaction of the two music genres mentioned above as a result of the change in the requirements of the age and the intensification of the intercultural synthesis especially with the increase of internet usage. In this context, arabesque rap music genre has emerged as a combination of arabesque music and rap music in recent years. Arabesque rap music has got listeners of the puberty youth. However, arabesque rap music is experiencing the social marginalization of arabesque music and rap music and it is an unwanted music genre today. The aim of this research is to understand who the arabesque rap music performers are, what and how they are expressed and why they turned to this music and to understand the social reasons, to perceive the society's perception of arabesque rap music performers and how this perception is interpreted by performers. The study population consisted rap music performers are in Turkey. The sample was selected from the people who performed rap music for a period or still performing in Malatya. In the determination of the study group, 11 male participants were reached by using "Probability Based Sample Selection Techniques" and "Snowball Sampling Technique (Yazıcıoğlu Y. and S. Erdoğan, 2004: 45). The participants in our sample consisted 9 people of performed/ performing arabesque rap music and 2 people of performing rap music. In this study, gender variable was evaluated in one dimension. The fact that the number of female arabesque rap music performers is low compared to men, the difficulty of communicating and connecting with them, and the fact that the female arabesque rap performers who were contacted refused to interview caused that the sample does not include female participants. In this process, a semi-structured interview form was used to obtain more information about arabesque rap music performers and to collect data within the scope of the study. Afterwards these interviews were resolutioned and analyzed. Content analysis technique was used in data analysis. In the light of the results, the analyzes were gathered in 12 subthemes and emphasised in topics such as the demographic characteristics of the participants, their reasons for starting this music genre, the process of writing the lyrics, performing this music and shooting clips, their perspectives on the future of this music, the reactions they received and the reason of that the women performers are less than men in this type of music. As a result of interviews with the participants aged between 16 and 31, it was seen that the participants started to perform arabesque rap music by imitating from the environment/internet, and their desire to become popular in their own environments. The participants expressed that they wrote their lyrics with the feelings of sorrow by thinking of their past sufferings or by just imagining their sufferings. All participants expressed a feeling of relaxation after singing. Clear information was not obtained from the participants about the history of the music they made, the narrative language in the clips and their pseudonyms. It was seen that the participants proceeded by imitating the previous names. During the interviews, two contradictory ideas about the future of arabesque rap music were encountered. Some of the participants see arabesque rap music condemned to extinction in the near future, while others regard it as the music of the future. As a result of the research; it is seen that arabesque rap music is performed in the youth period and as their aged they break off with this music. In addition, as the level of education of the participants progressed, their break away from arabesque rap music was also observed. Keywords: Arabesque Rap, Arabesque, Rap, Subculture, Sociology of Music, Music