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The Austin 100: Tufan Derince

Tufan Derince.
Courtesy of the artist
Tufan Derince.

Hometown: Diyarbakir, Turkey

Genre: Global

Why We're Excited: A Kurdish musician who's performed at hundreds of weddings in Turkey, Tufan Derince now spreads collaborative and celebratory music from his new home base in the Netherlands. Derince plays a stringed instrument called an elektrobağlama — think of a long-necked, amplified lute — that lends his arrangements a springy sense of playfulness. In "Sultane," a song credited to Derince's bandmate Raman Dari, traditional Kurdish music gets a wild and danceable remix.

Listen to Raman Dari's "Sultane (feat. Tufan Derince)"

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Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music and Pop Culture Happy Hour. He appears frequently on All Songs Considered and NPR newsmagazines.