Bajar, the Kurdish rock band led by Vedat Yıldırım, founding member of Kardeş Türküleri, blends folk, rock and traditional eastern tunes. Singing in Kurdish and Turkish, the band protests discrimination and inequality and stands for democracy and freedom, as in their Kurdish version of «They Don't Care About Us», recorded with the daf collective Defjen.
With jazzhane
- 15.07.2023 jazzhane Festival 2023, Rote Fabrik Zurich
- 22.03.2025 Nowruz Festival, Moods Zurich
About
Tenê ez dixwazim, Bêjim em ne xema wan in - All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us!
Bajar, the Kurdish-rock band led by frontman Vedat Yıldırım (founding member of the internationally acclaimed Kardes Türküleri), blends folk, rock, and traditional eastern tunes together: a project born in metropolitan Istanbul’s hybrid neighborhood and streets.
Singing in both Kurdish and Turkish, the band creates music, that is deeply political, challenges and protests the ongoing ghettoization of minorities, racial and cultural discrimination, inequality, democracy, and freedom.
Perhaps, this is best seen in their cover version of « They Don’t Care About Us», which they have recorded with Defjen, a daf-percussion-collective from Istanbul. A tour de force: reinterpreting and blending Michael Jackson’s masterpiece with Eastern tunes, switching Brazilian percussions with the Daf, and adding Vedat’s strong Kurdish voice, the song is a call - once again and after more than a quarter of a century - for freedom and justice.