Koray Candemir

Koray Candemir — Biography

Koray Candemir is one of the recognisable voices of Turkish rock: he reached a wide audience in the 1990s as lead singer of Kargo, and later made his own way with maSKott and solo work. He also writes, composes and produces; most recently he released the solo album Kendine Uzak in April 2026 and presented it on stage at DasDas in May.

With a band formed in high school he placed in the Milliyet High Schools Music Contest, and he left his industrial engineering studies at Yıldız Technical University unfinished. Kargo's founders took him on as singer to replace the departing Deniz Aytekin, and the 1996 debut album Yarına Ne Kaldı? made his name at once. On later albums he increasingly stood out as composer and lyricist too. When the band broke up around 2001 he released his first solo album, Sade, hosted the contest Sing Your Song on Show TV and acted in Ferzan Özpetek's film Cahil Periler. He rejoined Kargo in 2004; Ateş ve Su and the covers album Yıldızların Altında date from this period.

At the end of 2008 he left Kargo over differences of musical direction. maSKott, formed in Seattle with Serkan Çeliköz, released the album Tuval in 2010. In later years he continued with solo releases such as Yarım Kalan and Kimileri.