Meral Polat

“When looking at the world of Anatolian psych-rock, it is easy to focus on the retro sounds of artists like Barış Manço, but Polat runs with the sound firmly into the 21st century.”
Ben Forrest, Far Out Magazine, 2025

Meral Polat summons the soulful inheritance of her Turkish-Kurdish-Alevite roots and attunes it to the multi-layered cultural discourse of the urban diaspora. Already known in the Netherlands as a film, theatre, and television actress, her musical passions came to the fore after discovering a trove of her late father’s poems, which inspired the songs on her 2022 debut album Ez Kî Me. Echoes of Anatolian mountain songs reverberate through atmospheric grooves that channel desert blues, Afrobeat, and Turkish rock. Her sophomore album Meydan, released in September, gives musical form to the “Women, Life, Freedom” philosophy of the Kurdish women’s movement.