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"Şarkılarımla Karanlığa Bir Taş Atıyorum."
INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN GOLD AWARDS -
INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN GOLD AWARDS -
INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN GOLD AWARDS WINNER
Enzo Ikah
/Kongo - Istanbul
Lorenzo Afa Onan İkah , born İn Venus, Member of Bakongo ethinic group .
Education : attended Tumba mission college and sorbonne university , Paris study to be pyschologist
Religion : raised Catholic and become Humanist” Love is my religion ”
Career
İnternational reggae music star , Movie actor , sings in French , English , Lingala , Turkish , italian , spanish , German and others languages
in 11 years old started as chorister in church after learned Accordeon , piano , eloctronic and , bass guitar becomes Song writter 19 years .
debut with Koffi Olomide , plays with many artists İnternational , and come back to his country RD congo after to got master degree 2006
Enzo becomes more famous for his idea . The struggle he expressed through his music forced him out of the country.
After singing his song named “Brutal Soldier” which tries to raise awareness about the soldiers’ exploitation of people on a live program,
he was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
At that point, the corrupt system that he had been criticising worked to his advantage, and Enzo was able to bribe the soldiers and run away. In fact,
he wanted to go back to Paris, but his connecting flight was through Istanbul and since he did not have a transit visa, he had to stay in Turkey.
Enzo stayed at the Kumkapi Foreigner Guest House. He states that during his 78-day stay there, he did not experience any bad treatment and that his only difficulty was that he did not understand Turkish: “I had entered the country, I didn’t have a visa and it was normal for me to stay there. Now Turkey is like a country that has adopted me.”
Returning to his Music Career
Enzo, who worked as a porter in Istanbul to earn money, came across a music store on his first job. The store owner gave him a guitar as a gift and so he returned to his music career.
He met many musicians as he played the guitar on Istiklal Avenue (a busy pedestrian-only avenue in the centre of Istanbul’s entertainment life). He played with his Tanzanian friend Bob for a while, and then with the Turkish music group Bandista, which plays revolutionary marching music in a ska-dub-reggae style.
“At first, the fact that Reggae music is not that known in Turkey was a disadvantage. But my music is not standard reggae. I synthesize it with instruments such as drums and hammered dulcimers. I add the energy reflected to me by the audience to my music. This interaction is very important.”
after enter in turkish sinema as actor in Broken mussels ” Kırık Midyeler ” and TV turkish series Kara Yılan in antena A , Kayıp şehır in Chanel D…
“I try to raise awareness”
“I am a citizen of the world, Africa is just a reference. What concerns us today is not race, it is humanity. So many years have gone by with wars and hatred… I promote peace and love with my songs, I try to wake people up and make them become aware.”
It is very important for him to be able to express himself and his ideas through his music. He says that when he first arrived in Turkey he was always asked to sing Bob Marley songs to be able to make money. But he preferred to sing his own songs.
“Bob Marley is one of my heroes. But I do not want to repeat what he has said. I want to speak for myself. Of course, I have to earn money to survive, but I will not make music just for the sake of earning money.”
Enzo‘s determination has made its way. his first solo maxi single album “Red, Black & White” 15 october 2010 , and 1 year later in same date released full album ” Rainbow ” 15 october 2011 , Welcome to İstanbul will be soon released and he has already performed in 31 Turkish cities .
He talks about one of his concert experiences: “In some cities, the majority of the people had never seen a black person before in their lives. They could not understand my songs because I would sing in French, English and the Lingala language. But as soon as the music began, they started to dance and after the concert they were screaming, ‘one more.’ This gave me hope.”
Love and peace instead of war and hatred
“I don’t know how other people see music,” . “Some people might see it based upon money, some people might see music based upon opportunity and access. But I see music as life. I see music as inspiration.”
“It’s like art,” he says. “You’re gonna paint this thing, and people are gonna look at this art and say that it looks like a tree, looks like a car, some people it looks like a flower. People are gonna say different things according to what they see. It’s very different, what it looks like to them.”
“Music,” Enzo İkah maintains, “is a very important thing. We have to remember that no
force is stronger than the music ”
Love and peace instead of war and hatred
In his songs, Enzo talks about his life and the things he comes across each day. He states that, “To be able to talk about now, you have to understand the past, and to be able to talk about the future, you have to understand now.”
“The fact that I talk about the state and the corrupt system in my songs is not a political engagement. I talk about civil war because I have lived through civil war. These political issues that I talk about are in fact things that I have faced in my life.”
Because of the poverty, pain and despair he has witnessed, Enzo tries to give hope to people. He also emphasizes that he does not like to talk about religion in his songs.
“I believe that religions divide people. As Ziggy Marley says in his song; ‘Love is my religion’.”
These people who have been forced to migrate talk about the injustices that they have faced and their demand for peace and freedom through their art. Their free expressions exist through their art.
Love, peace, unity, respect !
