Abdullah Papur

Abdullah Papur — Biography

Abdullah Papur was a Kurdish-Turkish folk minstrel born in 1945 in Divriği, Sivas province, and raised in the nearby town of Kangal. He learned to play the saz as a boy and went on to compose extensively in both Kurdish and Turkish, becoming especially known for his renditions of long-form ballads (uzun hava). Kurdish-language songs such as Lê Lê Qurban, Dîloy Dîloy, Bardê and Sallana Sallana reflect his musical ties to fellow minstrels of the era, including Mahzuni Şerif and Muhlis Akarsu.

In the late 1980s he was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison over his politically charged song “Gardiyan,” during which time he continued writing new material behind bars. One of his ballads, dedicated to his wife Gülizar, remains a personal thread running through his body of work. Papur died in a traffic accident in 1989; his son, Ercan Papur, carried on the family's musical tradition as a saz player and singer in his own right.