Božo Vrećo

Božo Vrećo, born on 18 October 1983 in Foča, is a Bosnian singer of sevdalinka, the traditional love song of Bosnia, known for singing it a cappella and for bringing elements of jazz, soul and blues into the old songs.

Vrećo grew up with their mother, an artist who encouraged them to paint, draw and learn music, and two older sisters. They never went to music school and taught themself to read music and to sing. They went to Belgrade to study archaeology and earned a master's degree, but after graduating realised that their true passion was sevdalinka, and at 27 began learning to sing from old recordings.

The first performances came in Sarajevo, at the café Velike daire. A television appearance there led to meeting bassist Edvin Hadžić and guitarist Dino Šutalo, and together they founded the band Halka. Halka's debut album of 2013 had fourteen songs and was well received by critics and audiences, and a second album, O ljubavi, followed with twelve new songs, promoted with concerts in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Podgorica and at Kolarac in Belgrade. With Halka Vrećo also played the Exit festival in Novi Sad in 2016.

The first solo album, Moj sevdah (2014), held seventeen sevdalinkas sung a cappella, two of them original songs, and its biggest success was "Lejlija", dedicated to their mother. Two songs from it were used in the play Koštana, directed by Kokan Mladenović, in which Vrećo had a leading role. Pandora (2017) had eleven new songs written by Vrećo, among them "Pašana" with Marko Louis and the ballad "Elma", and its tour went from Bern and Brussels to Sarajevo, Belgrade, Banja Luka, Stockholm, Oslo and Paris. Melek (2018), Lachrimae with the lutenist Edin Karamazov (2020) and Sevdahology (2025) came next.

Vrećo names Himzo Polovina, Selim Salihović, Emina Zečaj and Nada Mamula among their models. On stage they often begin in an elegant man's suit and change into dresses they design and sew themself, with long hair, kohl and a beard, saying that music knows neither gender nor race. Swedish national television made a documentary about their life and devotion to sevdalinka.