Dilba Demirbağ

Dilba Demirbağ — Biography

Dilbahar "Dilba" Demirbağ was born on 24 November 1971 in the Kurdish village of Gülçatı, in the Kovancılar district of Elazığ, and emigrated with her family to Sweden in 1976, growing up in Karlstad and Uppsala. She took up piano as a child and taught herself guitar, beginning her music career as a DJ and later as a backing vocalist for Swedish pop singers Jennifer Brown and Eric Gadd. In 1996 she released her self-written debut album, Dilba, alongside the single I'm Sorry; the album sold more than 100,000 copies in Sweden and earned her a Grammis (the Swedish Grammy) and Aftonbladet's Rockbjörnen award. Her 1999 follow-up, You & I, received a top "five plus" rating from Aftonbladet and went gold, while the single Every Little Thing from her 2003 album Revolution became a radio hit. In 2005 she composed Miracle as the theme song for the Swedish TV series Kommissionen. In 2011 she competed in Melodifestivalen, Sweden's Eurovision selection, with Try Again; though she failed to advance past the semi-final, the song reached number one on iTunes. She married fellow pop singer Martin Svensson in 2000 and divorced in 2002, and in 2007 was reportedly detained before boarding a flight after joking about carrying bombs. Her siblings include journalist Dilşa Demirbağ Sten and dancer Dilnarin "Dee" Demirbağ.