İbrahim Tatlıses

İbrahim Tatlıses — Biography

İbrahim Tatlıses, born İbrahim Tatlı on 1 January 1952 in Şanlıurfa, is a Turkish singer, composer, actor, director, producer, television host and businessman. He is the son of a father of Arab descent and a mother of Kurdish descent, and has recorded songs in Kurdish and Arabic as well as Turkish. His stage name "Tatlıses" literally means "sweet voice"; his listeners know him as "İbo", and his standing in arabesque music earned him the nickname "the Emperor".

He received no formal musical training; sources state that he does not read musical notation and learned to read and write only around his early twenties. Even so, he wrote songs of his own such as Haydi Söyle. He began his recording career in the early 1970s; his early releases include Gelme İstemem from 1971, Sevda Yüklü Kervanlar from 1975 and Tövbeler Olsun from 1976.

The record that brought him to a mass audience was Ayağında Kundura; released in 1978, it broke the sales records of its day in Turkey and established Tatlıses as one of the best-known representatives of arabesque. In the years that followed he sustained his popularity with albums such as Adaletin Bu Mu Dünya, Ben İnsan Değil Miyim?, Mavi Mavi and Acı Gerçekler, while Selam Olsun, which foregrounds traditional folk music played on local instruments, is also among his notable recordings. Sources differ on the number of albums: some give 42, while Turkish sources say close to fifty. Beyond Turkey he reached a wide audience in Greece, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Alongside music he was involved in cinema for many years. His acting career began with Ceylan in 1978 and took him through dozens of films; on productions such as Mavi Mavi and Fırat he worked as both actor and director. He also wrote the screenplays of films such as Kara Zindan and İmparator, and took on producing duties on Cabbar and Aşık Oldum; the number of productions he directed exceeds twenty.

On television he became known for İbo Show, broadcast on various channels over many years. The programme returned to the screen on Star TV between 14 November 2020 and 18 May 2022 and ran for 43 episodes; after it was reportedly left without a broadcaster for a time because of low ratings, it was announced that from 2023 it would air on Tatlıses TV. Some sources state that he stood as a parliamentary candidate in the 2007 general election.

Away from performing he holds investments in food, tourism, construction, communications and transport, among them a çiğköfte chain bearing his name, a television channel and a radio station. According to sources he has also taken part in construction projects in Iraq together with his business partner Ali Sarıyıldız. On 14 March 2011 he was shot in the head and seriously wounded in an armed attack as he left a programme; he survived, and returned to television nine years after the attack.