Yıldız Tilbe

Biography

Yıldız Tilbe (born 16 July 1966) is a Turkish singer and one of the best-selling musical artists in Turkey, known especially for her eastern-infused ballads.

Life and career

Yıldız Tilbe was born in the Gültepe district of Konak, İzmir, and is of Kurdish origin. She is the youngest of her parents' six children. She was known by the nickname "Yadigar" within her family. Her mother Altun was from Tunceli, while her father Ali was from Ağrı. Her father Ali Tilbe was a seasonal worker. She attended the Mustafa Rahmi Balaban School, but left after the second grade, and started singing from an early age. At the age of 18, she married Güngör Karahan. From this marriage she has a daughter, named Sezen Burçin. After five years the couple divorced. She then started singing in various nightclubs in İzmir.
She began her career in 1990 in a nightclub owned by Cengiz Özşeker. While performing at the nightclub in 1991, she met Sezen Aksu, who asked Tilbe to become her backing vocalist. After accepting her offer, Tilbe moved to Istanbul and worked for Sezen Aksu for a while. After parting her way from Aksu, Tilbe started performing at Istanbul's nightclubs. She subsequently got an offer from Cem Özer to perform as a soloist in the program Laf Lafı Açıyor. With her appearance on this show, she became famous and released her first album, Delikanlım×Delikanlım15 June 1994 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1Delikanlım5:152Sevdanın Tadı3:443Sana Değer4:384Çizilmemiş Resim3:065Çal Oyna4:026Hoşçakal4:457Sevemedim Ayrılığı4:238Yalnız Çiçek4:029Zülüf3:4710Selâm3:39, in 1994, which became a hit in Turkey. In addition to her singing career, she started songwriting. In her songs, she addresses subjects such as sadness, love and separation and primarily uses romantic themes in her songs and compositions. In her romantic songs, she uses an imaginative and powerful language. Tilbe has composed many songs for several other artists and collaborated with them on their music projects. About her songs Tilbe said:

"My songs do not just tell my story, they tell everybody's story. That is why people listen to them. There is Yıldız who sings these songs, and there is someone who listens to them. I can not even listen to some of my songs because they are really painful.
Also I'm a person who has something to say not only in those songs but in other ways. I'm not a person limited to just about 40 songs..."
In 1996, the anti-narcotics police found some cannabis at her house. Tilbe was held in custody and was released after three days. To get rid of her addiction to cannabis, she was hospitalized at Balıklı Greek Hospital for a while. In the same year, she released her new album, Aşkperest×Aşkperest2 August 1996 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 13 tracks1Dayan Yüreğim3:342Yar5:033Aşkperest5:004El Adamı3:365Aşk Yok Olmaktır4:416İlan-ı Aşk5:297Gönül Çalamazsın3:478Durma Git5:029Aldat4:4410Yarabbim5:4711Tesadüf Değil3:5512Dili Ballım3:5613Delikanlım4:21. In the late 1990s, she worked at various nightclubs in Istanbul, Bursa and Eskişehir. In 2001, the release of her new album Gülüm×Gülüm2001 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1Aşkın Cezam mı? (Bin Dereden Su Getirsem Arınamazsın)4:502Yar Yar4:413Parayla Değil Sırayla3:354Yalancı Gönül3:585Aşk Denen Ölüm3:356Kara Kuru Birşeyim4:247Gülüm4:138Allan Pullan3:149Bendim Yanlış Olan3:5010Aşkın Benden de Öte4:51 brought her back to the stardom, which was followed by the album Haberi Olsun×Haberi Olsun24 April 2002 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1Ummadığım Anda3:572Haberi Olsun4:553Aşk Laftan Anlamaz ki4:404Aşk Kazanacak4:295Zaten Aşığım3:496Vaktim Yok Unutmaya4:157Çok Zor4:338İnşallah4:159Sevmeyeceğim4:0710Ne Diyem5:33 in 2002. In 2003, all of the songs on her album Yürü Anca Gidersin×Yürü Anca Gidersin2003 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1Paraçi4:192Emi5:133Yürü Anca Gidersin4:054Çabuk Olalım Aşkım4:135Sana Yok Yok4:356Yalan mı?5:087Kolay Değil ki4:138Çat Kapı4:319Anlat Bakalım4:1310Ama Evlisin4:5211Aşkın İçinde Aşk Var5:2012Bende Kalmadı3:56 became hits in Turkey. Throughout her career, she has won many awards and received various nominations.
In 2004, Tilbe was diagnosed with uterine cancer and underwent surgery and treatment at Hacettepe University Medical School. Tilbe has related her illness to the personal issues she was dealing with at the time and said:

I did not say this to anyone except my family. Fortunately, I had a child before. Otherwise, this issue could tear me up. I had a great love in my life during that period of time, I was deeply in love. I was just thinking about him. He was constantly on my mind. When a person is in pain, it could actually be a problem in her body. I completely forgot him after my illness was over. Now I know that everything is not worth hanging around, and I learned that I should not feel despaired for unnecessary things.
Once she received a marriage offer from Azer Bülbül but she did not accept his proposal.

Controversies

After the 2006 Israeli airstrike on Lebanon, during a television appearance Tilbe said "May God bring down one disaster after another upon Israel," to which the studio audience answered "Amen." In response to Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in early July 2014, Tilbe is reported to have said on social media site Twitter: "God bless Hitler, it was even too few what he did to the Jews, he was right" and "The Jews will be destroyed by Muslims, in the name of Allah, not much time left for it to be done". Her tweets received support from Melih Gökçek, the mayor of Ankara, who is a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party and himself a controversial figure. Later she tweeted that did not mean to praise Hitler and that she also has some Jewish friends and acquaintances.
Yıldız Tilbe, who was a guest on the İbo Show music program broadcast on the Turkish channel ATV in 2009, got angry and reacted when her song was interrupted by Turkish singer and the program's presenter İbrahim Tatlıses. Tatlıses found Tilbe's behavior disrespectful, reminding her that "I saved you from the pimps." This further caused tension between them and Tilbe left the program.
During an interview in 2012 she called a journalist bitch for which she later went on trial.

Contributions

• The list above includes songs given to other artists whose lyrics or music belong to Yıldız Tilbe. She has songs in her own albums that are written and composed by herself but are not mentioned in this list.