Pekkan: The Story of the Groundbreaking Goddesses of Turkish Music | The Archives
Part I: Semiramis
“Sometimes I will talk, sometimes I will sing, sometimes we will have fun, sometimes we will be sad. Hopefully there will be little sadness and more joy!” — says Semiramis Pekkan in one of her videos on YouTube.
Originally published in 2023.
Pekkan.
When you hear this surname in Turkey, it usually refers to two of the most iconic Turkish female performers ever. Ajda Pekkan and Semiramis Pekkan. Two sisters, two artists, two lives, two different kinds of glamour - and for me, two women who opened the door to Turkish music.
When people mention their names, you can see the love and the respect that fill their eyes.
Ajda and Semiramis Pekkan are two women that changed my life with their music. They are the ones that made me love with Turkish music. And that is why I called them “The Goddesses of Turkish Music”. And that is why I decided to pay homage to these incredible women with articles, dedicated to each of them.
And just like that… This first part belongs to Semiramis.
As I started listening to her music, I realized that I really wanted to get to know the person she is. I couldn’t help but wonder… how would I understand her interviews in Turkish? I know very, very little Turkish, and I’m really looking forward to mastering it when I move to Istanbul to study and live there in September, but obviously, it still isn’t September and my Turkish isn’t still good enough to understand her.
However, I found out that she has started uploading Q&A sessions on her official YouTube channel and every video has English captions. I felt such happiness when I discovered that and I watch every single video that’s being uploaded.
That’s also why most of the information that you’ll read here comes from Semiramis’s YouTube videos. Is there a more trustworthy source than Semiramis herself after all?
Semiramis Pekkan made her epic comeback this year at Haldun Dormen’s musical last year, after a long and needed break, and she made a promise in her first YouTube video that from now on she’ll be with us very often.
That’s how she actually re-released her iconic single ‘Bana Yalan Söylediler’ (‘They Lied to Me’) in two versions. I firstly discovered the remix and I remember that I played it at least 50 times that day.
I was fascinated to discover that initially she started out as an actress and it was exactly Haldun Dormen that discovered her talent. If it hadn’t been for him to see Pekkan’s potential, she would have never entered theatre. As a self-educated actress, she was really successful and achieving a lot in theatres in Ankara, but due to the hardships related to the low income, she felt obliged to quit playing in theatres:
“We were thinking of what we would have for dinner in the evening, there were times when I used to think about it. It was such a difficult time. That is how it was. I never thought of quitting theatre life, but I was obliged to quit.”
She turned to cinema after theatre and again she was successful, making 13–14 movies a year, but it was again the economic situation that led her on the way to music:
“The music offer came just at that time. Mr Ibrahim, the former owner of ‘Kervansaray’, told me to come over. He said: ‘Ms. Semiramis, I want you to sing at ‘Playboy Club’. He said he wanted me to be a rival to Ajda. I almost had a heart attack. It was like a joke.’
The money he offered her was enough to buy her first house and to live 4–5 years after that. But she had never sung before in her life. She immediately went to her sister, Ajda, to ask her what to do, who advised her to take the offer and to learn by heart a few songs. The other person that she met was again Haldun Dormen, who told her: “You can do it, sweetie.” With the support of these two people, the start of her musical career was set and a star was born!
Despite the desire of the journalists to set Semiramis and Ajda against each other, such thing never happened:
“I never wanted something like that. I decided to draw myself a completely different path. One of my decisions was to sing Turkish songs with a European orchestra. No one had done that before. It was a new experience. How could I be different? It was not possible for me to be a competitor of Ajda Pekkan — it was not possible then, it is also not possible today. We are two very different people. Two different talents, if I have any. I thought we had to have our two different ways back then. That is why the Turkish songs that I loved, which were the only ones I could sing those days, I decided to sing them with the orchestra. That is why nobody could compare me to someone — there was no place to compare. It was such a hit.”
Having only one month to prepare her performance at ‘Playboy Club’, the most elite nightclub at the time, she was so worried that:
“I was dying of fear so much that I bought my house from the advance given by Mr Ibrahim. The second thing I did was to buy a plane ticket to Italy. I decided to go to Rome. It was not clear why. At that time I knew neither Italian nor English properly. I wanted to escape. Probably I thought Italy seemed close by. I bought a one way ticket to Rome, I will never forget it. Can you imagine the degree of my fear.”
During her second ‘Playboy’ program she met her first husband, the journalist Ercüment Karacan, who was also the owner of ‘Milliyet’ newspaper. Meeting him, was the turning point in Semiramis’s life, as she says, because that’s when she fell in love for the first time. Out of her love for him, she decided that “it wouldn’t be right for a woman who is with someone like Ercüment to be on stage”. That was her own decision, unprovoked by no one else.
It was actually Ercüment himself that encouraged Semiramis to keep on recording and releasing music from 1969 to 1974.
Thus, she won several Golden Records and made songs that are still loved and relevant, touching the hearts of generations:
“What do I think now when I see they are listened to a lot? I am very happy, very proud. Being persistent is a good thing. It is very nice for me because I have only one son and one of the most important things for me is to leave good memories for him. I think I can do it. That is what I want to do today.”
After quitting music completely, she moved to London with her husband Ercüment. At that time she couldn’t speak English properly, but still she really wanted to start something new. That’s how she started a business in the fashion industry, setting out only with a single blouse and keeping in mind that fashion was something very close to her.
Opening her boutique in London, she had a partner, who knew 3 languages proficiently and at that time Semiramis started taking English speaking courses.
What’s incredibly interesting was that during this period, was that Semiramis herself brought many popular brands to Europe, including Versace.
“Versace used to make a brand called Genny. One day, as in every profession, there are such behind-the-scenes conversations, it was said that Versace, Genny’s designer, is doing something for himself. A new line, which we should definitely see. Of course, we went running. In Florence, there were shows at that time. There was a coat rack in a hotel room. We said where is Versace? They said here. Where? He was hiding behind the hangers. He was a very young and very shy boy. That is how we met him. And after that, I suppose he had already opened a couple of shops in the Far East. We walked together on the same path and Versace became Versace. Let’s say the first in Europe, if we consider England as Europe. I opened his first shop in Europe, yes.”
Semiramis opened Gianni Versace’s first shop in London, and he respected her so much that he also sent her his collections and asked her to wear all the pieces before the fashion shows.
“There was a big competition because I was also working with Gianfranco Ferre. He was a very good fashion designer, too. They would send the outfits before the fashion shows, but they wished that every single one of their pieces to be worn. I am not that kind of a person to be told what to do. And I have never worn them head to toe. Years later, Gianfranco Ferre said that he knew a lot of people in fashion, women who had jobs in fashion, but he did not know anyone like Semiramis because she never became a prisoner of any designer.”
What’s more — her style had been so unique and special that “Women’s Wear Daily” listed her along with Princess Diana in the top 10 of the 100 most stylish women in the world.
While living in UK, she’s been a mother to orphans, helping them graduate and sending them money. Thus, she changed their life for good, a change and gratitude that will always stay in the hearts of these children.
One of the worst events that marked her life, however, was the loss of her first son, the fruit of her love with Ercüment Karacan:
“May God forbid such a loss to any mother. One of the biggest losses in the world is the loss of a child for a mother. It is a very difficult period. To be able to overcome it and to overcome it healthily. I have dealt a lot with myself and researched a lot. And I think I pulled through it healthily. But of course it is something that you can never forget.”
“When someone’s pain is so fresh and someone comes and says to you, stop worrying, it will pass, it is impossible to understand. What is going to pass? A part of you is gone. It never passes. The pain of a mother losing her child never goes away, never. However, would you accept it? Would it be more comfortable to accept it over time? Yes, time is an important factor in understanding and going through some important moments.”
After a while and after the hardships of life, Ercüment and Semiramis put their marriage to an end:
“We were two people who loved each other very much. In other words, I do not believe that anyone in life loved me as much as Mr. Ercüment did. He loved me so much, and so did I. According to what I learned later, after these losses, serious losses, there are two ways ahead of us. One of them is to deal with the situation by embracing one another, the other is to break up. Unfortunately, we broke up. While I was dealing with everything in my own way, so was he doing, and we grew apart. We could not have known then what was wrong and what was right. But we parted very lovingly and in a great friendship. And may God have mercy on him, he was my best friend, he was my everything until he passed away.”
After divorcing her husband, she met the father of her second child whom she married. Being single for six months, she got 4 marriage proposals, but she preferred Mr Gulu Lalvani:
“Mr Gulu had also been married in the past and had two children. They are two beautiful children whom I feel like my own today. None of the others had a family yet. The reason I chose Mr. Gulu was because I thought he understood fatherhood and family better among those four people. And it is true, he is a very good father. I do not think I did wrong. I lost Emir (her first son), but he gave me Zoran (her second son).”
At that time, Ercüment wanted to meet Gulu, because he wanted to get to know the person that Semiramis was going to build a life with. Thus, the two men went to dinner together. After that, the first person that Semiramis phoned was Mr Ercüment, whose opinion was of great importance to her:
“He said: ‘My dear Semiramis, it is a very right decision, he is a very kind person. I can feel that. He is a very nice person but he has a lot to learn from you’. And he said: ‘All you have learned up until now’, that he had taught me, ‘you will be put in a position to give. But he is a very nice person, God willing, you will be very happy!’ And he told me to go ahead. How sweet!”
Gulu Lahvani, being a really successful businessman, was spending most of his time in Asia. Until then, Semiramis had lived in London, Los Angeles, spent a lot of time in France, but never in Asia. That’s how she started travelling to Hong Kong, China , Japan, Thailand, Singapore. During these years, she also gave birth to her son with Gulu.
And just like that, decades later, in 2022, at the age of 74, Semiramis put the beginning of a new chapter in her career in music:
“The reason why I took such a long break was to be able to spend time with my child. During my life with my first child, I did not have to work, but it was a period when I was working. Then I suffered a lot in my own heart, in my own soul, thinking I should have spent more time with him. Then, when I had my second child, may God give him a long life, I said never… It is my duty to raise this child. I am that kind of a person. And that is what I did.”
“For a long time, it never occurred to me to do something like this all over again. It never occurred to me. I say coincidence but… as you know nothing is a coincidence. It was a message sent to me from the universe, and I got that message. The reactions I got at the time I received it, those sincere articles, the articles sent to me were very, very touching. And I said, well, if I can, let’s do it. This came up at a very good period of my life.”
“I do not look at age. I do not look at life as age. Everyone, at any age can pursue everything they want, something they can do with love. It is that simple. So I said okay, since I received such a message, I am going ahead. Let’s see what will happen. Today, I return to myself, to do something with myself, to produce…”
For Semiramis, age does not have any significance and it is just a number:
“That is why I have never had a problem with age. I do not have a problem today, I also did not have yesterday. I was not upset for why I was young, I am not upset for why I am old. I am satisfied with myself. So if you love yourself, age does not matter.”
Working really hard and going every day to Moda, a beautiful and vivid district in Istanbul, to take singing lessons, Semiramis is excited to bring to light her upcoming projects that she describes as life-changing for her. And the first one — a remake of her iconic song ‘Nerdeysen’ (‘Wherever You Are’), a duet with Evrencan, is coming this Friday, 03.02.
I definitely cannot wait to see the new take on this favorite song of mine and to hear their mesmerizing voices, blending together beautifully.
And as Semiramis says in one of her last video — sometimes she’ll talk, sometimes she’ll sing, sometimes we’ll have fun, sometimes we’ll be sad.