People still remember where they were the day Ekhmetjan[1] died. It was Thursday, June 13, 1991. He was only 22 years old.
As is common with the death of an icon, many people refused to believe he was gone. Instead rumors spread that thugs from a rival disco had knifed him in a back alley or that he had faked his death and gone abroad to marry a princess.
Ekhmetjan had been in Ürümchi preparing for a concert across the then (relatively) open border with Kazakhstan when he died. Back in those days before the train reached Kashgar and the highway stretched across the desert to Hotan, it was difficult to carry bodies home for burial. There were no freezer trucks. After a long and bumpy ride around the desert Ekhmetjan arrived in his hometown of Qarakash (near Hotan) covered in celery and ice against the smell of rot. People remember when he arrived.
As his official biography puts it, Ekhmetjan died of “an illness.” Although everyone knows he died of a heroin overdose, no one says this because he was first Uyghur superstar. It would be too disrespectful to point out the faults of a hero. That would be agreeing with the local officials in Hotan that sentenced him to two years “without rights”—posthumously—and banned the performance of his music in order to drive home the point that his legacy should not be emulated.
But mythical figures cannot be regulated. Twenty-three years later he is still revered, mimicked, and evoked on stages throughout Uyghur society. There were other popular Uyghur singers in the 1980s, but none of them performed on the stage in the same way as Ekhmetjan. He had moves.
Ekhmetjan started learning classical Uyghur instruments such as the rawap, tanbur, dutar at the age of four. By the age of 15 he was admitted to music classes in Hotan,Teachers’ College and joined the New Jade Ensemble—the official song and dance troupe of Hotan. In 1986, when he was 17 he joined the provincial level Xinjiang Song and Dance Troupe sponsored by the Xinjiang Ministry of Culture. It was there that he learned how to play guitar.
After his move to Ürümchi, Ekhmetjan picked up on many influences. He developed his Turkish folk rock style that you hear in the rhythms of his guitar playing. He transformed the most sacred of Uyghur performances, the Muqam, into a rock opera by transposing one of the 12 epic songs of Uyghur tradition for electric guitar. It was here that he picked up the accoutrements of the rock star: glamorous clothes, sexy dance moves, and “the devil’s drug.”
As a writer put it in 2010: “Unfortunately this star died in the hands of the devil’s drug. If he was alive today wouldn’t he bring acclaim to Uyghur people by performing on the world stage.”
But before he died, Ekhmetjan produced a legacy. Many young Uyghur singers such as Ablajan and Six City acknowledge the influence of Ekhmetjan in their attitude toward Uyghur music. He turned folk poetry from rural poets such as Rozi Sayit into love songs that shook stages and audiences. He was loved by everyone. In the song featured above “Moon-Shaped Face” he takes Sufi sentiment and turns it toward a sensuality that is provocative and inflammatory in its intensity.
Moon-shaped face
Moon-shaped face, flower-like body,
Never leave my thoughts,
You bound my heart with intense feelings,
Oh, you king[2] of beauty, flower goddess.
Since then you have disturbed my peace,
You deprived me of my sleep.
Searching for your beautiful body every morning.
I am looking up and down your road,
Oh, you my flower garden.
La, la, la, la, la, la…..
Ekhmetjan’s legacy continues in tribute concerts complete with the Exmetjan shimmy. In a recent performance (below) by Memetjan Rozi Sayit, the son of Exmetjan’s poetic influence Rozi Sayit, he and a group of guitarists bring his legacy back to life. As they play “Moon-shaped Face,” the song featured above, Ekhmetjan comes alive, guitars dueling in harmony and bodies swiveling in synchrony. The medley of Ekhmetjan songs is subtitled in Turkish, Uyghur and English, the audiences to whom he paid his greatest tribute. Watching this video with a Uyghur friend, he said “Wow they’re really rocking out.” Ekhmetjan died too young; but his memory continues outside of the march of time.
Thanks as always to M.E. for his help with the translation and understanding the importance Exmetjan’s influence.
This essay was first published on March 27, 2014.
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