Hip Hop / Rap project.
For the "Cartel" project, three bands got together: "Da Crime Posse" , "Erci E" and "Karakan". This album was released in 1995 and soon after the bands went their separate ways. The album gained immediate popularity in Turkey when it was first released.
Cartel featured five songs by the group Karakan from Nuremberg, three songs by Da Crime Posse from Kiel, three songs by the West Berlin artist Erci C., and the title song, which was a communal recording by all groups involved. The cover design of the CD, with a red ground color and ornamented C, represented the Turkish national flag. In Turkey, the 1995 album sold over 300,000 copies, but only sold 20,000 copies to the young Turkish community in Germany, its target audience of approximately 1 million. Their manager, Oznan Sinan, said upon its release that “our target groups are the Turks, not the German society. Cartel is not defined to these three groups but intends to expand as a community…and…in time as an idea.” He used the German media to promote a cultural identity, in an effort to identify these rappers as Turks and the group’s rhymes in the Turkish language aimed at developing an ethnically defined minority. Cartel used elements of ethnic segregation as they were experienced in the history of German hip hop to try to unite the excluded parts of the hip hop community under an artificially ethnic minority, which was supposedly Turkish.[1] Despite not selling as many albums in Germany as had hoped, they are still regarded today as the legitimate founders of Turkish hip-hop and recognized for providing a foundation for Turkish migrants to emerge in the German music scene.[2]
In 1996, the group had a fight, split up and went separate ways. Their debut album was banned in Turkey. Karakan and Erci E released solo albums. However, due to lack of success Karakan decided that they would quit. Erci E released one more album afterwards but had low sales and little attention. In 1998, Erci E collaborated in a single with German musician Peter Maffay. Cartel's original debut album was re-released in 2004.