Ferhat Tunç

Ferhat Tunç — Biography

Ferhat Tunç is one of Turkey's best-known voices of protest music, singing in Kurdish, Zaza and Turkish since the mid-1980s. War and peace, the Kurdish question and the demands of Alevis run through both his songs and his writing. He now lives in Germany .

He first appeared on stage at twelve. After finishing high school in 1979 he moved to Germany, briefly studied at a music school in Mainz and released his first album, Kızılırmak. Bu Yürek Bu Sevda Var İken (1984), made with Orhan Temur, was marked by its objection to the 12 September coup. He returned to Turkey in 1985 and released Vurgunum Hasretine; his rally-like concerts and best-selling albums brought detentions, trials and years of concert bans. Later records include Kobani (2016) and Memleketçe (2022), and he collected his columns from Özgür Gündem in the book Zor Zamanlar İnce Şarkılar. In 2010 he received the 3 March World Free Music Award in London.

He also entered politics: he stood as an independent candidate supported by the BDP in 2011, ran for HDP in Aydın in 2018, and announced after the 2023 elections that he was leaving politics. He said in 2019 that he was leaving Turkey because of the cases brought against him. In 2026 he released the lament Cigeram, about Dersim and Seyit Rıza, Dostum for Selahattin Demirtaş and Ah Gülistan for Gülistan Doku.