Seba Kayan with EsRAP
CARPET CONCERT
CARPET CONCERT is an idéa and space, to create sounds, music and new unthought spaces beyond the western knowledge and cosmology. The new born event series that I founded, tries to combine the occidental and the oriental world in a new identity and hybridity. The Mission is simple: It’s to highlight a distorted and stereotypical image of the so-called “Orient“, and to celebrate a new narrative, beyond the perceptions of popular one-dimensional Orientalist ideas. More Info
Seba Kayan is a Viennese DJ and artist. Her work oscillates between DJing, performances, exhibitions and curating. Her music has a forensic, political and metaphorical approach. By digging into various music archives, she collects lost pieces. Her polyrhythmic compositions integrate a wide array of musical genres, including Orientalfuturistic electro, techno and Acid. In between, she burns the unmistakable swing of the so-called “Oriental” Music into ironclad techno frameworks. A binary vision of an occidental vs. oriental world is not aimed to be created, but both cultures are tried to be embodied and become interwoven.
EsRAP have developed into a role model of Austrian resistant pop art with a migrant background through their releases and concerts in recent years and enjoy the corresponding media attention. The siblings Esra and Enes Özmen grew up in the old Viennese working-class district of Ottakring and in their mixed German/Turkish lyrics deal with questions of identity, being foreign in their own country as children of the third generation, the necessity of rebellion experienced in their own bodies, rap as resistance and also being a woman in the male-dominated hip hop world. In contrast to the usual division of roles in this, Esra contributes the hard and fast rhymes, while her brother Enes with his sensitive voice takes over the more melodic vocal parts. Musically, EsRAP find inspiration in the Turkish-Oriental genre of arabesque, which they like to combine with modern beats.