Besides her fairytale-like songs, she adds colour to life through her stories and poems, questioning her inner colour with the song “Mis”(Had been) on her recent album.

Moreover, she adds “But my way is very long. My way is narrow, the streets are very small”.

We wonder what stories and surprises are awaiting us…

We met the urban minstrel (as she calls herself), Jehan Barbur in Savra. We started to talk about music, and then mentioned her colourful personality and her every subject…

In our interview, we are willing to talk about your different sides and what makes you divided. Shall we start our conversation by the phrase how you are called as “Urban Minstrel”?

When the subject is the minstrel tradition, Asik Veysel, Karacaoglan, Erzurumlu Emrah and many other folk minstrels come to mind. People who travel mostly to tell pastoral stories with their instruments such as cura, saz, baglama..etc are called as minstrels (In Turkish: Ozan), Being a minstrel is a tradition.

When my first album "Wake up" was released, it was sacrificed as to what kind of music it was. They tried to get rid of it by calling it jazz. On the first album, there are jazz members but also some different forms as well. Moreover, considering its form in general, it is a Turkish kind of music. That is why I made up the phrase “Urban Minstrel”. At first, I was largely criticized. I was perceived as trying to rival with people like Asik Veysel and the others. I have expressed my thoughts in various newspapers, saying, “I'm trying to tell that the love, the life and the evacuation of the political situation are stuck in the city through the eyes of a woman.” Birsen Tezer, Ceylan Ertem and I, with our own pens, we handcrafted our music with our own production. Whether you like it or not, the musicians Sena Sener, Evren Cangunduz, Kalben have appeared, you will appreciate them at the end of the day. As Ceylan Ertem mentioned in an interview, we actually give each other hand. Neither they nor we forget about the giving hands. This is exactly being a minstrel.

There are many rhythmically existing songs, which disappears in a short while, that the lyrics do not make any sense. Are your songs, which have stories, a reaction to them?

No, a reaction is a waste of time. We have to do something equivalent to the system to stand up and compete against it. I have been doing this job for 20 years, 10 years with albums, 10 years without albums. I think I have a right to say a little about music. However, when we look back, the people we sample have not criticized the songs on the music market; they have continued to make their own music.

Would you share the hidden sides of Jehan Barbur that we have not seen yet?

If you do not perceive it as priggishness, I would like to answer your question like this: I am versatile. I am also interested in theatre for some time besides music. The stage person also has acting skills. In fact, being coquettish, arch and flirtatious require acting. Stage position is important. You stand on stage and sing your song, but you make such a hand movement that the audience is influenced by it. Sometimes we do not feel like singing songs but once the curtain is opened, we switch the mood and reveal the acting side.

I cook very well, I am a good fisher and good at organizations. I also like house decorating. If you give me a house with nothing in it, I can decorate it from the bottom to the top. These are the things I do at certain points in my life, the colours I add to my life.

At the end of the day, I have made a decision like this. Rather than getting divided for writing a book, playing in a theatre play and running to a concert, I have decided to do one thing professionally.

I would like to mention your books as well. How did you start writing?

Like every teenage girl with pimples, I started writing when I was 14 years old. Writing has sweetened me up. I was writing for some magazines and after a while, my writings accumulated. Printing life has started. Apart from that, the "Father Stories" book, which consists of interviews about the relationships with the fathers, emerged.

Can you share the starting point of the Father Stories with us?

I question the father notion very much, I wanted to give some thought to this subject and questioned why so many women in society live in the shadow of man and father. Motherhood is instinctive, but not paternity. That is the first place where the trauma starts. Mothers and elders, express that a father is the head of the household to children so that they begin to see their fathers as heroes. If a father does not know where to put such a social role, his children will be overwhelmed by all his clumsiness.

The names in your albums and books are striking. It turns out that they are not ordinary but from the stories, what do you think?

In fact, all of them tell why. At that moment, my mood, the shape of my life and my questions make up my stories. The book “Where is my house”; at that time, I asked myself where I belonged to. The book “Yellow”; because it made me feel peaceful, like in a classical Turkish film scene, more nostalgic and more analogue. I wrote the “Lawns on the Roof" dedicating to the mossy roofs in the spring and that homelessness.

Do you have an album or song that is persistent on you?

I do not know if I am influenced by myself, but I have had almost 1000 concerts and repeated my singing. Each time you become estranged with the songs. I have songs that I play and listen occasionally. Sometimes I even get better myself. I have some songs that I feel like "who is singing? that is not me". The trending ones for me are “Nafile”(Vain), “Neden”(Why), “Guzel Adam”(Beautiful Man), “Ardisik”(Consecutive) and “Mis” (Had been).

What does Bodrum mean to you? Can we listen to Bodrum in your eyes?

I cannot say that I like Bodrum very much; I like to visit those empty streets in the centre of Bodrum in the winter because summer is under invasion. I am a kind of Gumusluk person. I like it both in summer and in winter. Gumusluk is a place where our craziness is not despised by anyone. I like its nature that has a strange healing power.

What does Jehan Barbur like to do in her daily routine?

I like cooking very much. I am a vegetarian but I like fish. I like setting tables, having guests and long conversations with friends. I live in a village house in Gumusluk. I work in my garden. Reading books is very good to me and each time I read a book, I realize that I do not know much.

Do you have anything to say about love?

As a child, when I was asked "what do you want to do when you are grown up?", “I wanted to be in love” I answered. Perhaps this was not the love of a man, but the love of life. Over the years, I have not experienced anything that would benefit me much in love.

Do you have any words about violence against women?

First, women and mothers need to be educated. Because those men are born from mothers who are scared, insulted, morally and traditionally closed to their homes and deprived of their own strength.

A woman is a beautiful aesthetic. There is something like female rights, not male rights. Therefore, men do not have a problem with the rights.

Should we briefly mention your album and concert works?

I have a few songs ready for my sixth album. My fourth book is on its way. The university interviews and signature days are now routine. I think I need to work a little bit more on the new album. I might make a single. I would like to put out the poem “Behcet Necatigil”, which is a gift from Firat Tanis, on the album.