İlyas Yalçıntaş

İlyas Yalçıntaş — Biography

İlyas Yalçıntaş was born on 7 March 1989 in Erzincan; he finished high school at Küçükçekmece İMKB Anatolian High School and began playing guitar at 16, working small venues before his breakthrough. He became known in 2014 when he competed on X Factor Türkiye with İncir, written and composed by his friends İskender Külekçi and Orçun Karamuk; in 2015 he re-arranged the song with Behzat Gerçeker & Enbe Orkestrası, and that version topped the Kral Pop and TTNet music charts.

The same year he released İncir as a single, followed by Olmazsa Olmazımsın and his debut album Aşk Adam Seçiyor; his second album, İçimdeki Duman, gathering those songs, came out in 2016. He went on to release singles regularly in the following years, including Gel Be Gökyüzüm and, in May 2018, the duet Şehrin Yolu with Feride Hilal Akın. In December 2023 he announced he had been diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt syndrome.

On 16 July 2026 he was detained and arrested the same day as part of a drugs investigation targeting well-known figures, and gave a public statement in his own defense while in custody.