The planned Ilisu Dam will inundate a 12,000-year history, including the ancient town of Hasankeyf along the Tigris valley in the pre-dominantly Kurdish-populated southeast Turkey. There have been public campaigns to stop the construction of the dam in recent years by activists in Turkey and in Europe including sponsoring the creation of two 2010 video-clips of two popular figures from Turkey. Tarkan’s, written and performed with Orhan Gencebay, Uyan (“Wake Up” in Turkish) video-clip depicts the damages that environmental pollution has caused in Turkey and around the world. Tarkan has embraced a leading role in environmental activism in Turkey. He is also one of the liberal environmental activists trying to stop the construction of the Ilisu Dam, which would destroy the environment and archeological sites in Hasankeyf. Produced and directed by famous director Fatih Akin, the video-clip of Aynur Dogan’s Rewend (“Nomad” in Kurdish) implies the need for the preservation of the tradition and historical monuments with a subtler environmental activist tone. Tarkan, on the other hand, a mainstream Turkish musician, is attempting to transcend the cultural binary between Turkish and Kurdish citizens of Turkey in order to reach a wider swath of the population to mobilize a more easily accessible discourse for the liberal audience in Turkey. This presentation will be a comparative textual and contextual analysis of two video-clips written and performed by Tarkan, the most popular Turkish vocalist and pop music singer; and Aynur, one of the most popular Kurdish vocalists of the 21st century. Going beyond the lyrical comparison of those two songs dedicated to the environmental pollution and the preservation of the historical town of Hasankeyf respectively, this presentation will recap two competing visions of Turkish and Kurdish environmentalism in contemporary Turkey dealing in the context of the Kurdish uprising. By questioning the implications of ownership of the space and heritage of Kurds in Hasankeyf as well as the environmental sensibilities of the liberal Turkish people, this presentation will compare two popular singers’ attempts to relate with the land, space, history, environment, and ownership in their musical expressions.