“The Face of Vision” by Şehinşah
We have mentioned in the past that the style of popular rappers from parts of the world not directly associated with hip-hop tends to be largely based on the same lyrical motifs as the American founders of the genre. And on this track also, despite being rendered in a totally non-English language, we seem to have the traditional rap references to money, women, guns and what have you.
But that said, even as translated into English, “The Face of Vision” is not that easy to understand. Yes, on the surface it reads like a standard mainstream rap. But there are also some, shall we say apparently regional intricacies contained therein.
And it’s like if you’re translating a Spanish rap into English, that’s one thing. But rap lyrics are such that they tend to be heavily imbued with colloquialisms. And obviously when it comes to translating a Turkish rap, getting the entire meaning across isn’t that simple.
But what is ascertainable, besides the standard braggadocio if you will, is that the title is in some way related to the notion of this being Şehinşah’s “season”. Or put differently, he feels that his time has come. So maybe what the vocalist is saying is that now he’s truly on the verge of a major international breakthrough, which may be true considering that we are obliged to cover this song.
Şehinşah and “The Face of Vision”
Şehinşah (aka Shahinshah) is a rapper from Turkey, being 35 years of age at the dropping of this track on 28 December 2021.
On top of the fact that the mainstreaming of rap is more of a recent phenomenon in his homeland, it appears as if generally speaking the Turkish music industry isn’t as comprehensively detailed as its Western counterpart. Therefore there doesn’t seem to be much information about Shahinshah readily available online. That said, he has a number of tracks and four studio albums under his belt thus far. He began with 2006’s HaremeynAlamut, and his most recent full-length being 2020’s 666.
Meanwhile, “The Face of Vision” is a part of his fifth album.
