Mikâil Aslan

Mikâil Aslan — Biography

Mikâil Aslan was born in 1972 in the village of Kardelen in the Hozat district of Tunceli; his family moved to Kayseri when he was ten because of political troubles. After a period with the band Grup Munzur, he again left for political reasons, settling in Germany in 1995 and turning to an independent music career. He released his debut album, Agerais, in 2000, followed by Kilite Kou in 2003, which includes "Dê Bê Wayîro," his only recorded collaboration with his cousin, fellow musician Ahmet Aslan; on his 2013 album Xoza, the track "Çem Vano" later drew millions of plays, and the same record features "Adıre Zerre Ma," recorded together with Erkan Oğur.

Aslan blends Anatolian, Armenian and Mesopotamian instruments such as the bağlama, kaval, mey and tambur with Western instruments like guitar and saxophone, and alongside his own compositions he collects and archives traditional kilam songs from the Dersim region. He also appeared in the 2010 documentary Two Locks of Hair: The Missing Girls of Dersim. In 2026 he released a new album, Masumo Pak, gave a free public concert in Diyarbakır, and called for the Munzur Festival to "return to its roots"; he also lent a solidarity concert to the ongoing vigil against a geothermal power plant near Varto.