Cem Adrian

Cem Adrian is a Turkish singer, songwriter and producer, born Cem Filiz on 30 November 1980 in Edirne. He was the second child of a Bosniak family from Bosnia; his father was a tradesman and his mother a housewife. He took his stage name from Hadrianopolis, the old name of his home town.

He began making music in middle school and spent six years at a regional radio station in Edirne as a presenter and programme director. In Istanbul he sang in Mystica, an ethnic and electronic group, in 2002. Two years later, while he was working as a fortune teller in an Istanbul café, he met the singer Demet Sağıroğlu, who passed his demo recordings to the pianist Fazıl Say. Say invited him to Bilkent University, where he studied for two years as a special student; doctors there found that his vocal cords were unusually long, which he has called a biological anomaly turned into an advantage.

His first album, Ben Bu Şarkıyı Sana Yazdım, came out in February 2005. It was followed by Aşk Bu Gece Şehri Terk Etti (2006), Emir (2008), Kayıp Çocuk Masalları (2010), Siyah Bir Veda Öpücüğü (2012), Şeker Prens ve Tuz Kral (2013), Sana Bunları Hiç Bilmediğin Bir Yerden Yazıyorum (2014), Tuz Buz (2017), Solmayan Şarkılar (2020) and Gökyüzümün Yıldızları (2022). He made Cam Havli (2014) with Umay Umay, wrote the music for Abdullah Oğuz's film Sıcak (2008) and played a young imam in it.

He likes to work with others: "Kalbim Çukurda" with the rapper Gazapizm (2018), "Yeniden" with Şanışer (2020), "Kül" with Mark Eliyahu (2021), "Saykodelik" with Nazan Öncel (2023), and duets with Aylin Aslım such as "Herkes Gider Mi?". In 2024 he released Mücevher, with guests from Ajda Pekkan and Teoman to Zuhal Olcay and Selda Bağcan, and in 2026 his channel began releasing recordings of his twentieth-anniversary concert. He lives in Ankara, says he has long turned down the awards offered to him, and supports charities for children with SMA and village schools.

The playlist is his Topic channel on YouTube, with his albums, singles and live recordings.