VIDEO: Turkish folk musicians’ Michael Jackson cover goes viral on social media

ISTANBUL

A cover of one of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits by amateur Turkish folk musicians, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the death of the King of Pop, has gone viral on Turkish social media.

With traditional bağlamas, darbukas and violins in hand, the musicians from the western Black Sea port of Ereğli produce a lively version of 1995 hit “They Don’t Care About Us,” in a video clip that also includes some playful choreography.

The musicians posted the clip to YouTube and Twitter, including a tribute message dedicated to Michael Jackson. Preparation of the video, filmed mainly on the top of a boat cruising in the Bosphorus, reportedly took one month.

Ereğli previously made headlines in 2009 when its former mayor told Turkish media that he had personally invited the megastar Jackson to the town’s annual music festival.

“We met Michael Jackson accompanying an important agency from Turkey in 2008. He said, ‘Dear Halil, my whole program for 2009 is full. But I might think about coming to Ereğli in 2010. Can you prepare the infrastructure?’ I responded, ‘You give me the order and I will make sure to prepare it,’” former Mayor Halil Posbıyık had said at the time, while also expressing his sorrow for Jackson’s premature death.  

“He told me this: The festival is not important for me, but I don’t want to go to the other side incomplete. That is why I will come to Ereğli. May God rest his soul, but the important thing is that he died without seeing Ereğli. He died incomplete, this is why we are sad,” he added.