Sezen Aksu (a.k.a. Little Sparrow; in Turkish, Minik Serçe) has long been considered as the undisputed queen of Turkish popular music. In the 1970s, she became famous for being the first female Turkish singer to perform her “own” songs in public. Then, after two decades of securing her position in the music industry, in the 1990s, she reached the level of providing support of mentorship to emerging artists, and since then, she has widely been approved as a modern patron of popular music in Turkey. Of course, her patronage has been derived from her prolific authorship. In the last twenty five years, she has written a great deal of songs to be used by other musicians, and concordantly, those who have used Aksu’s songs in their albums caught critical media attention. Eventually, many successful musicians have built their careers on their collaborations with Minik Serçe, and the latter’s patronage has continued to be consolidated. So, should this story be evaluated at face value?
Drawing on the Weberian concept of cult of personality and with reference to Adorno’s writings on the fetish-character in music, this paper discusses about the established author(ity) of Sezen Aksu in Turkish popular music scene.