How Did We Get Close This...featuring Ray Rush

He was born in 1973. At age 19, he left his hometown, Samsun, and moved to the Capital, Ankara, due to his university education which was on Linguistics. After school, he moved to Istanbul where he thought he could have an active role in the music industry.

Since 1994, he has been working in the Turkish music industry as a songwriter, producer and performer. He founded MiracleWorkz Productions, worked on various genres of music and had the opportunity to work with a lot of leading names in the industry.

In addition to a number of songs he wrote and produced, he also contributed the industry with numerous remixes, and had a leading role in showing the importance of remixing. By doing this, he made way for a lot of musicians to come up with new sounds. What separates him from many other musicians is that the sound and the quality of his work are quite parallel to the examples in the Western world. In 1998, he wrote and produced the national Nr. 1 single “Bekleteme/Don’t Make Me Wait” performed by Pınar Aylin and famous American actor/singer Michael Damian. The success of this song started a trend in Turkey, and soon many others followed this new sound – a synthesis of electronic/dance music and traditional Turkish music. 

In 2003, he made an oriental house remix for Ricky Martin’s single “Jaleo” for Sony Music USA and started to gain recognition outside of Turkey.

As a performer, he joined ‘Acid Trippin’, one of the country’s most loved Acid Jazz bands, and participated in many prestigious Jazz festivals around the country singing his own Soul/R&B compositions.

He also made a few vocal house records. The most successful of these records was the one named “Never Gonna Let U Go” which was produced by Marshall Jefferson in 1996.

￼Besides all this achievement in Turkey so far, he has also been working with Duran Genc as “Duran & Aytek” releasing dance music records on various European labels like 3 Beat Records (UK), Baroque records (UK), Deep Records (NL), Method Records etc. Over the last 3 years, the two gained support and respect from some of the most influencial DJs like Paul Oakenfold, Sasha, Sander Kleinenberg, Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk etc. They also performed a live set in Holland’s biggest outdoor dance music event “Extrema Outdoor” sharing the stage with Roger Sanchez, Sander Kleinenberg, Gene Farris etc. in July 2004. The same year,  Paul Oakenfold included the duo’s “First Sight” track in his Creamfields compilation, which was nominated for “The Best Electronic/Dance Music Album” category in the 2004 Grammys. 

In addition to all his works in the local Turkish and European markets, Aytekin Kurt has also been working with many popular artists from the Middle East.  He has produced and/or remixed titles for Amr Diab, Elissa, Amal Hijazi, Nawal Al Zhogbi, Melissa, Assi El Hellani, May Hariri, Nelly Maqdessi, Janine D., Fadel Chaker, Najwa Karam, Wael Kfoury, Karol Sakr so far.

How Did We Get Close This...featuring Ray Rush

DaveJamHall