Ceylan

Ceylan — Biography

Born Ceylan Avcı, of Zaza background, she is a Turkish folk and arabesque singer, arranger, television presenter and actress, born in 1974 to a mother from Bayburt and a father from Pertek in Tunceli Province. Sources give her birthday as either 25 or 26 June. She was born in the Fındıkzade neighbourhood of Istanbul.

Having lived with her family for a time in Duisburg, Germany, she began performing alongside her father in wedding-hall shows as a small child. After winning a music competition in 1983, she returned to Turkey with her family and, in 1984 at the age of ten, entered the music business as a child singer and actress. She scored a major hit with the 1986 release Seni Sevmeyen Ölsün, which sold 1.3 million copies in Turkey, while her 2005 album Ah Gönlüm won a gold-record award from Mü-Yap; around this time she was also named Best Female Folk Singer twice at the Kral TV Video Music Awards.

On screen, she appeared in films such as Garibim Ceylan (1985), Hep Ezildim (1989) and Acı Kader (1990), and hosted the music programme Ceylan Show on Kanal 7 and later Samanyolu TV between 2012 and 2016. She has put out dozens of albums and singles, including duets with her daughter Melodi Bozkurt, and continues releasing new singles into the 2020s.