Beba Selimović

Beba Selimović, born Izeta Selimović in Trebinje, was one of the great sevdalinka singers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She was the youngest of five children, and her older siblings called her "beba", baby, a name she kept on stage. Her family came from Bileća and moved to Sarajevo during the Second World War, and she went to school there.

In 1954 she was one of six people chosen from some 300 candidates to sing for Radio Sarajevo, which started her career as a soloist for the station. She recorded a large number of sevdalinke for its archive, and her first record, "Po mojoj bašti zumbuli cvjetaju", came out in 1958. Because of her serious, dignified manner on stage many called her the "Dama sevdaha", the Lady of Sevdah, and she gave her whole career to the original sevdalinka, without modernising it.

Through the 1960s and 1970s she released a steady stream of records on Jugoton, Diskos, Beograd Disk and RTV Ljubljana, among them "Put putuje Latif aga", "Tugo moja", "Kraj potoka bistre vode", "Tiho teci vodo Mošćanice" and "Vrati mi se, ljubavi". At the Ilidža folk festival she sang "Vjetar nosi žuto lišće" in 1966 and won with "Ah, ljubav, ljubav" in 1968; Telegraf describes her as the first woman to win Ilidža. She sang "Na zemlji se jednom diše" at the Beogradski sabor in 1970, "O, ćuti, ćuti, srce moje" at Ilidža the same year and "Zbogom" there in 1973.

Her modern hits included "Plačem ja, plačeš ti", written by Damjan Babić, "U srcu mome živiš samo ti" and "Možda ćemo sada voleti se više", composed by Kemal Monteno. Her albums were Mene majka gleda sa čardaka (1971), Od sevdaha goreg jada nema (1979), U srcu mome živiš samo ti (1984) and Gorom jezde kićeni svatovi (1988).

She often worked with Zaim Imamović, Zehra Deović, Nada Mamula, Safet Isović and Meho Puzić, who was a close friend. She received the Golden Badge charter of Radio-Television Sarajevo and a lifetime achievement award in Tuzla in 2008.

After her last album in 1988 she retired and recorded nothing new. She lived in Sarajevo with her second husband, the violinist Dževad Šabanagić, and stayed there through the siege. Beba Selimović died in her sleep in Sarajevo on 10 March 2020 and was buried at Bare cemetery two days later.