Ajda Pekkan

Ajda Pekkan — Biography

Ayşe Ajda Pekkan (born 12 February 1946 in Beyoğlu, Istanbul) is a Turkish pop singer and former film actress. Carrying the "Süperstar" label in the national press since the 1970s, she has become one of the defining figures of Turkish pop through songs centred on strong female characters. By adapting to the musical currents of each era, she has remained popular for more than half a century; her vocal technique has drawn critical acclaim, and she has influenced numerous singers who followed her.

Brought up in Istanbul and schooled at Çamlıca Kız Lisesi, Pekkan first stepped onto a stage in the early 1960s, singing at a nightclub with the group Los Çatikos. Broad fame arrived in 1963 when she took first prize in the screen-actor contest organised by the magazine Ses; that same year she entered Yeşilçam cinema as the lead of Adanalı Tayfur.

Across the next six years she appeared in roughly fifty black-and-white productions, among them Şıpsevdi (1963), Avare (1964), Hızır Dede (1964), Şaka ile Karışık (1965), Lafını Balla Kestim (1965) and both Ayrılık Şarkısı and Dişi Düşman (1966). At the start of the 1970s she left acting behind and devoted herself wholly to music; afterwards she faced the camera only rarely, in titles such as Avrupa Yakası (2004) and Romantik Komedi 2: Bekarlığa Veda (2013).

The first two decades of her recording career rested on arrangements: foreign melodies refitted with Turkish lyrics. Songs such as Kimler Geldi Kimler Geçti, Palavra Palavra, Sana Neler Edeceğim, Hoş Gör Sen, Bambaşka Biri, Uykusuz Her Gece and O Benim Dünyam, most of them with words by Fikret Şeneş, entered the canon of both her repertoire and Turkish pop at large. The albums Süperstar (1977) and Süper Star 2 (1979) stand out as the landmark releases of that era.

Her renown abroad, above all in Europe, expanded steadily through the 1970s; alongside international concert tours she cut a French-language album in 1978. Her catalogue includes material not only in Turkish but also in French, English, Italian, German, Greek and Japanese. Mounting popularity turned into public pressure for her to represent Turkey at the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest; she agreed with reluctance, and when Pet'r Oil finished fifteenth in a field of nineteen, the setback pushed her into a break from performing that lasted several years.

From the 1990s onward she collaborated with a shifting circle of writers and arrangers, notably Sezen Aksu and Şehrazat. Tracks like Yaz Yaz Yaz, Sarıl Bana, Eğlen Güzelim, Vitrin and Yakar Geçerim climbed to the top of the national charts, while the albums Cool Kadın (2006), Aynen Öyle (2008) and Farkın Bu (2012) connected her with younger listeners. With record sales exceeding fifteen million, she ranks among Turkey's best-selling artists of all time. In 1998 she was granted the title of State Artist, and in 2013 she received the officer grade of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Three of her albums figure in the Hürriyet newspaper's selection of Turkey's hundred best albums, and in 2016 she appeared on The Hollywood Reporter's Power 100 list of the most influential women in entertainment. Although she does not call herself a feminist, many of her songs portraying resilient women have been embraced as feminist anthems. Her sister is Semiramis Pekkan.