Sezen Aksu

Sezen Aksu — Biography

Sezen Aksu, born Fatma Sezen Yıldırım on 13 July 1954 in Sarayköy, Denizli, is a Turkish singer, lyricist, composer and music producer. In a career that began in the mid-1970s she became one of the leading figures who gave direction to Turkish pop music, selling more than 40 million albums worldwide. In the press she is known by the epithets "Minik Serçe" (Little Sparrow) and "Queen of Turkish Pop".

She is the daughter of a mother from a family that came from Thessaloniki in the population exchange and a father from the Pazar district of Rize. When she was three the family moved to İzmir, where she was educated. After finishing İzmir Girls' High School she enrolled at the Faculty of Agriculture of Ege University, but left in her second year to pursue music. In 1974 she moved to İstanbul to make records, and a year later released her first single, Haydi Şansım, under the name Sezen Seley.

Her first studio album, Allahaısmarladık, appeared in 1977. It was followed by Serçe (1978), Sevgilerimle (1980), Ağlamak Güzeldir (1981), Firuze (1982), Sen Ağlama (1984), Git (1986) and Sezen Aksu Söylüyor (1989). Gülümse, released in 1991, became one of the best-selling albums of all time in Turkey. The following years brought Deli Kızın Türküsü (1993), Işık Doğudan Yükselir (1995) and Düş Bahçeleri (1996), while Düğün ve Cenaze (1997), whose music was composed by Goran Bregović, brought her to an international audience.

In the 2000s she remained prolific with albums such as Deliveren (2000), Şarkı Söylemek Lazım (2002), Yaz Bitmeden (2003), Bahane (2005), Deniz Yıldızı (2008) and Öptüm (2011), later followed by Biraz Pop Biraz Sezen (2017), DEMO (2018) and Demo 2 (2020). After a five-year gap she released Paşa Gönül Şarkıları, a twelve-song album, on digital platforms on 27 June 2025.

Besides her own singing, Aksu stood out for giving the songs she wrote and composed to other performers. She supported many of her backing vocalists and produced their albums, helping artists such as Sertab Erener, Şebnem Ferah, Aşkın Nur Yengi, Levent Yüksel, Yıldız Tilbe, Yonca Evcimik, Hande Yener and Harun Kolçak become known through the 1990s. Şımarık and Şıkıdım, which she wrote for Tarkan, became hits across continents, and her songs were reinterpreted in other languages in the Balkans. In 2010 the American broadcaster NPR listed her among the world's "50 Great Voices".

Aksu also kept a link with cinema and television, appearing on camera in the 1978 film Minik Serçe and later in productions such as Büyük Yalnızlık (1989) and Osmanlı Cumhuriyeti (2008). She also took part in Fatih Akın's documentary on music in Turkey, İstanbul Hatırası: Köprüyü Geçmek (2005). Her songs were also used in the soundtracks of films such as Propaganda (1999) and Delibal (2015).