Kantar

Kantar Gezer (born June 13, 1978 in Antakya, Turkey) is a Turkish pop singer who successfully broke through as an English-language recording artist in 2005; however, due to personal issues regarding his management, he never achieved the long-lasting success he deserved.

Biography

Every year there are new acts that try to break the music industry and gain a spot between the big established names. And every year most of those new acts are slaughtered off for being unoriginal or not being motivated enough. Though, luckily, there are also some acts that can stand out in the big mass, and Kantar is one of them. With his exotic mixture of Western beats and Eastern melodies he creates a new, typical Kantar style, which is like a fresh breeze of air in the music scene.

Kantar Gezer was born on June 13th 1978 in Antakya, Turkey and has been living there until he was twenty years old. At the age of fourteen, Kantar appeared on a television show called ‘Cocuklar sarki yarismasi’ (Children’s song contest). After finishing second, with his self-penned ‘N’aber dostum?’ (What’s up, mate?), he got calls from the most important people from the Turkish music scene. Everybody was interested in giving Kantar a record deal, but his parents didn’t give him permission to do anything other than studying, until he graduated. This was, at that time, a great loss for the music industry in Turkey.

When he finished his high-school, he was eighteen and ready to become the national star he was supposed to be. What he didn’t realise was that people had forgotten him and it would be so much harder to get a record deal. After two years of writing, recording and sending out demos, he still hadn’t managed to get a deal. People told him he had a great voice, but he just didn’t have the right ‘style’ or the right ‘image’. Everybody was trying to make him the next Ricky Martin, although he clearly stated that he didn’t want that to happen. As he reached the age of twenty, he decided to try his luck in the U.S.A. and with success. By an accident he met Murat Bolat, one of Turkey’s top-producers. Also one of the many people who were interested in signing Kantar after his appearance on ‘Cocuklar sarki yarismasi’. Murat asked Kantar if he was still interested in the music business. So one thing led to another and Kantar finally got his long-awaited record deal at the age of twenty-one. He returned back home to Antakya (Turkey) and started writing his own material.

At the end of 2001, he had completed his writing for his debut album which would be recorded in the months to follow. Kantar moved to Istanbul to record the majority of his songs in Murat Bolat’s studio. After five months they were finished but Kantar still wasn’t happy with the final product. He asked Murat if he could write a couple of extra songs and Murat gave permission. So Kantar had bought his own place in the big city that is Istanbul and installed a recording studio in his house. Without knowing what was lying ahead of them, Kantar took all of the material he wrote and recorded with Murat to his own house and started writing again. He had not idea that all of his efforts would be gone in a matter of minutes by the end of that evening. As many youngsters do, Kantar decided to go out with his friends but when he returned, he saw that his new house was burned down to the ground. Kantar was devastated. All of his hard work was gone, he had done it all for nothing. Luckily, Murat Bolat was one of those people that aren’t blinded by money. He told Kantar to go back to Antakya, to write new material and to come back to Istanbul whenever he felt like he was ready. It didn’t matter how long it would take, as long as Kantar would be satisfied with the end-product.

So, once again, Kantar returned back home and tried writing new material. At first he couldn’t come up with anything, but slowly everything he needed to say came out of his pencil. In just three months, Kantar had written and composed over fifty songs. Kantar decided that he would stay in Antakya, just to select all of the songs he wanted. He didn’t want to go to Istanbul, to realise that he still didn’t know which songs to choose.

Finally, as the year 2003 began, Kantar went back to Istanbul and knocked on Murat’s door. As promised, he let Kanter move in with him. They started recording the songs and during the recording-process, they became close friends. After two months, fourteen songs were recorded and ready to be put on an album. Just when the album was going to be made, Kantar got the offer to participate in the national final of Turkey for the Eurovision Song Contest. Kantar realised that he couldn’t let this chance slip away and decided to enter with one of the songs he’d written for his album. The song ‘Gel benimle’ (Come with me) was chosen to compete with Sertab’s ‘Every way that I can’. Sertab was one of the leading female vocalists of Turkey at that time. After a very exciting voting procedure, Kantar lost out on Sertab with only two points difference. Sertab went on to win the Eurovision ’03, so Kantar wasn’t sad at all. At least he lost from the best winner the contest had seen in ages!

Because Kantar was so supportive of Sertab, she asked him to tour with her on her pan-European tour. Kantar couldn’t resist and accepted Sertab’s offer. They toured twenty different countries and played in a total of forty-nine different concert halls. All of the dates were sold out, and the tour got excellent reviews from various papers. Kantar was described as ‘the best thing that could have happened to Turkey’ and one paper even wrote: ‘finally there is someone who can give his generation a good name when it comes to making excellent music’.

It was already late 2004 when the tour finished and Kantar was too exhausted to release his album at the same time, so it all got postponed. Finally, in February of 2005, Kantar teamed up with Murat Bolat again to write one more song for the album, which would become ‘Why (did you)’, his debut single.

His new single is a very personal one. It’s about a good friend of him, who left him when his house in Istanbul burned down. The photo shoot has given us a sneak preview of the charisma Kantar has to offer us and with his great sense of music, this single is ready to set the world on fire! The video will be directed by Murat Bolat (yes, the same one as the man who believed in Kantar’s abilities) and shot on the 28th of June in Marmaris, Turkey. Look out for the single in the cd-shop near you, as it will be released on the 11th of July, together with a bonus cd that contains lots of surprises.

Discography

Albums

2005: Sophistication (#3)

Singles

2005: Why (Did You) (#9)
2005: Don't Love You No More (#3)
2005: I'm Sorry (#4)