Kurdish music is one of the richest among the nations in the Middle East and around the world. It has gone through several revolutionary stages and has found its way to the international arenas, thanks to extremely talented, experimentalist, and dedicated artists like Eros Kurdi.
Born in 1972, Aras Fatih Rasoul, better known with his artistic name Eros Kurdi, was forced to exile when he was only nine years old. Under the persecution of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Eros’ family escaped Iraq for their political activism and involvement in the Peshmerga revolutions against the Baath regime. In 1981, Eros moved to Iran for a short while, then to Syria, and from there to the former Soviet Union, where he begun nurturing his talents.
Eros first settled in Ivanovo, central Russia, and entered Interdom (Ivanovo International Boarding School(The first International Boarding School in the world)) to pursue his studies away from his family. Speaking to BasNews in an exclusive interview, Eros described his studies and his life at the Ivanovo Interdom for eight years as a turning point that has brought him where he is now.
Eros attended different art classes while in Ivanovo: music, film and ballet to name just a few. After Interdom he moved to Eskilstuna in Sweden where he reunited with his family, but it took him only three years to decide to return to Moscow and begin his academic studies at “Moscow State Art and Cultural University” to become a film director. It was during this time when he started writing songs and pursued his dreams as a musician professionally.
Even though he was singing and playing guitar since his childhood, Eros released his first CD single Tap-Tap [footsteps] in 1999 to shake the ground for Kurdish music.
Eros is known for his unique style, not only in his musical output, but also in his performance, lyrics, choreography, and, maybe most importantly, his vision and perspective for the world around him. One could realize this by only looking at the cover of his first single that was realized in 1999. The concept and the style are not only breakthrough for 23 years ago, but it is stunning even for 2022.
But the biggest hit of Eros was released in 2005 with the short musical film Gez Neke [Don’t Bite]. The 23-minute video reached almost every corner of Kurdistan with a few days. People shared it on CDs and the songs could be heard from small teahouses across cities from the very first days. The interesting point is that almost everyone knows this work of Eros by the name “Khappa Gyan” — literary translated as Sweet Rotund or Sweet Chubby . It must be noted that beauty standards in the Kurdish culture are rather different from those in the popular western culture, which means slimness of women is not always ideal.
The latest hit by Eros was released earlier this year. The song is named Sawar [Bulgur] whose text and music video highlights an old traditional culture of the Kurds — making Bulgur from wheat after the harvesting season every year in a collective and musical ritual. The language, the scenery, the clothing, the rhythm, and melody, and the symbols used in the work are all of significant importance. During the interview, Eros noted that he conducted a comprehensive research into the traditional culture of Kurdistan before off kicking the music video.
But what makes Eros’ works shake the society the first minute they are released and live on for many years? Most of his fans believe that one key factor to this enormous success could be Eros himself as an artist who has never distanced himself from his roots despite having to leave in diaspora for decades. Others see him as an artist with a God-given talent to find his way to the people’s heart.
But for Eros himself the success comes with his dedication, sacrifices, and the love for his art and people. This, of course, has made him an artist with bigger ambitions after every achievement. He is now among the very few Kurdish artists who aims to reserve a wider space in the international arenas for Kurdish art and music.
Without revealing any details, he said a new song is in the making now and it is expected to “shake the Kurdish music like never before.”[1]