BODUR is here to channel musical art into an exploration of self. The London-born Turkish-Sri Lankan artist harnesses an alternative electronic soundscape to embrace her dual heritage and layered identities. From her music to her visual aesthetics, BODUR’s creative process is shaping her as an artist who is inspiring a generation of South Asian and Middle Eastern women across the UK.
BODUR embraced a new musical language to make ‘MAQAM’, her debut album. It was 2022, when she was ready to expand on her knowledge of Western Music theory and began attending The Arab British Centre to learn how to play the Oud, a fretless, Middle Eastern string instrument. “I felt inspired to create within the maqam system and to adopt its traditional narrative principles to tell my own story. As hard as I’ve tried over the years, I’ve never been very good at speaking my mother tongue but the musical language of where I am from, the maqam – I was able to understand and speak fluidly.”