Serhat Hacıpaşalıoğlu

Serhat Hacıpaşalıoğlu — Biography

Known professionally as Serhat, Ahmet Serhat Hacıpaşalıoğlu was born in Istanbul on 24 October 1964. He entered the entertainment industry on the production side, founding his own company, End Productions, in 1994, and that same year began producing and hosting Riziko!, the Turkish adaptation of the American game show Jeopardy!, on TRT. His recording career followed in 1997 with the debut single "Rüya-Ben Bir Daha."

Throughout the 2000s he balanced broadcasting work with a steady stream of releases: "Total Disguise," a duet with Viktor Lazlo, in 2004; "Chocolate Flavour" in 2005; three duets with Georgian singer Tamara Gverdtsiteli in 2008; and "Je M'Adore" in 2014. His debut studio album, That's How I Feel, arrived in 2019, and in 2022 he released a new arrangement of "Benim Halkım," a song first recorded by Tanju Okan in 1975.

Serhat gained international recognition by representing San Marino at the Eurovision Song Contest on two occasions. He was eliminated in the semi-final in Stockholm in 2016 with "I Didn't Know," though a 2017 disco remix of the track featuring Martha Wash made him the first Turkish singer to chart on the US Dance Club Songs chart. In 2019 he returned with "Say Na Na Na" and reached the final in Tel Aviv, delivering San Marino's best-ever Eurovision result; German and Spanish versions of the song followed in subsequent years.