Amar Gile

Amar Jašarspahić, known as Amar Gile or simply Gile, is a folk-pop singer from Kakanj, born in 1990. He says he has loved music since early childhood and got his voice from his mother. Yet for years his life was volleyball: he has told Kurir that he trained to become an athlete, won the national championship and played for the national team, until his mother, who had first hoped he would study law, steered him toward singing.

His way into music came almost by chance, when a friend found an audition for Zvezde Granda in Zrenjanin. He won the show's seventh season in June 2013, and on 25 June thousands of people filled the town square of Kakanj to welcome him home, with fireworks and a police escort to the stage. The same year he released his first album, Čovjek tvoga sna, with songs such as the title track, "Kafana liječi sve" and "Ne prestaju moje kiše"; in 2015 it earned him a platinum plaque.

A long run of singles followed: "Trnje oko srca" and "Prekasno" in 2015, "Pijano" and "Imam samo jednu želju" with Haris Burina in 2016, "Spreman na sve" and "Apokalipsa" in 2017, "Promjena" and the duet "Ponekad" with Jelena Kostov in 2018, "Nek' to budem ja" and "Sve što znaš o meni" in 2019, and "Boli boli" with Ivana Selakov in 2020. On 10 December 2017 he played the Arena in Zenica, and in 2022 he released "Stari ja". He tours the Balkans, Western Europe, Scandinavia, America and Australia and is one of the most sought-after singers for celebrations.

The awards came early: the discovery of the decade in Sarajevo and the Oskar popularnosti as singer of the year in 2013, the Golden Ladybug for best foreign singer in North Macedonia in 2014, and in 2015 the Davorin Popović award for best young singer. Kakanj made him an honorary citizen in 2015, the year he became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is known for his charity work for children, young people and the elderly in need, and he has paid for the schooling of the son of a miner killed in an accident in the Zenica mine.