Ajda Pekkan

Ajda Pekkan — Biography

Ayşe Ajda Pekkan (born 12 February 1946 in Beyoğlu, Istanbul) is a Turkish singer and former film actress. Known in the Turkish press as the "Süperstar" since the 1970s, Pekkan became one of the defining figures of Turkish pop music with songs built around strong portraits of women; keeping close to the trends of each era, she has sustained her popularity for more than fifty years. Critics have praised her vocal technique, and she has influenced many of the singers who came after her.

Raised in Istanbul and educated at Çamlıca Kız Lisesi, she first came to music in the very early 1960s, performing at an Istanbul nightclub as a member of the group Los Çatikos. Wider recognition came in 1963, when she won the cinema-artist competition run by the magazine Ses; that same year she entered Yeşilçam cinema with the film Adanalı Tayfur.

Over the following six years she appeared in nearly fifty black-and-white films, including Şıpsevdi (1963), Avare (1964), Hızır Dede (1964), Şaka ile Karışık (1965) and Ayrılık Şarkısı (1966). In the early 1970s she gave up acting and turned entirely to music; in later years she stepped in front of the camera only occasionally, in work such as Avrupa Yakası (2004) and Romantik Komedi 2: Bekarlığa Veda (2013).

She spent the first twenty years of her career on arrangement songs, foreign compositions fitted with Turkish lyrics. Pieces such as Kimler Geldi Kimler Geçti, Palavra Palavra, Sana Neler Edeceğim, Bambaşka Biri and O Benim Dünyam, most of them written by Fikret Şeneş, became classics of both her own repertoire and Turkish pop music. The albums Süperstar (1977) and Süper Star 2 (1979) were the most resonant works of this period.

Through the 1970s her profile abroad grew, particularly in Europe; in 1978 she recorded the French-language album Pour Lui. Her recordings also feature languages besides Turkish, such as French, English, Greek and Japanese. Her rising popularity turned into pressure to represent Turkey at the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest; she accepted reluctantly, placed fifteenth among nineteen countries with Pet'r Oil, and after the disappointment withdrew from the stage for a time.

From the 1990s on she worked with a changing roster of songwriters, chief among them Sezen Aksu and Şehrazat, reaching the top of the charts with songs such as Yaz Yaz Yaz, Eğlen Güzelim and Yakar Geçerim, and reaching new generations with the albums Cool Kadın (2006), Aynen Öyle (2008) and Farkın Bu (2012). With sales of more than fifteen million records, Pekkan received the title of State Artist in 1998 and the officer grade of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2013; three of her albums appear on the Hürriyet newspaper's list of Turkey's 100 Best Albums, and in 2016 she was named in The Hollywood Reporter's list of the hundred most powerful women. Her sibling is Semiramis Pekkan.