İbrahim Tatlıses

İbrahim Tatlıses — Biography

İbrahim Tatlıses, registered at birth as İbrahim Tatlı, was born on 1 January 1952 in Şanlıurfa. He is a Turkish singer, composer, actor, director, producer, television presenter and businessman. His father was of Arab background and his mother of Kurdish background, and alongside Turkish he has also performed songs in Kurdish and Arabic. His adopted stage surname "Tatlıses" translates literally as "sweet voice". Admirers call him "İbo", while his commanding position in arabesque music earned him the title "the Emperor".

He never had any formal musical education; sources note that he cannot read notation and only became literate towards the age of twenty. Despite this he composed pieces of his own, among them Haydi Söyle. His recording career got under way at the start of the 1970s, with early releases that included Gelme İstemem in 1971, Sevda Yüklü Kervanlar in 1975 and Tövbeler Olsun in 1976.

The work that carried him to a mass audience was Ayağında Kundura; the 1978 release shattered Turkish sales records of the period and turned him into one of the most recognisable figures of the arabesque genre. He kept his standing in later years through albums including Adaletin Bu Mu Dünya, Ben İnsan Değil Miyim?, Mavi Mavi and Acı Gerçekler, while Selam Olsun, built around traditional folk music performed on regional instruments, also ranks among his significant recordings. Sources disagree over his album tally: some mention 42 albums, whereas Turkish-language sources point to roughly fifty. Outside Turkey he built a substantial following in Greece, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Cinema occupied him for many years as well. He made his acting debut with Ceylan in 1978 and went on to appear in dozens of films; on Mavi Mavi and Fırat he served both in front of the camera and as director. He penned the screenplays of pictures such as Kara Zindan and İmparator, and handled production on Cabbar and Aşık Oldum; the number of productions he directed is more than twenty.

On television he became identified with İbo Show, which aired on a succession of channels over many years. The show came back to screens on Star TV between 14 November 2020 and 18 May 2022, running for 43 episodes; reportedly left without a broadcaster for a period owing to weak ratings, it was announced that the programme would move to Tatlıses TV from 2023. Certain sources also record that he stood as a parliamentary candidate in the 2007 general election.

Beyond his artistic career he has invested in the food, tourism, construction, communications and transport sectors; a çiğköfte chain carrying his name, a television channel and a radio station are among these ventures. According to sources he also participated in construction projects in Iraq alongside his business partner Ali Sarıyıldız. On 14 March 2011, as he was leaving a programme, he was the target of an armed attack in which a bullet struck him in the head and left him gravely injured; he survived the assassination attempt and returned to television nine years later.