Hanka Paldum

Hanka Paldum, born on 28 April 1956 in Čajniče in eastern Bosnia, is a Bosnian singer of sevdalinka and folk music and a co-founder of the record label Sarajevo Disk. She is regarded as one of the finest female sevdah singers of the twentieth century and is popular across the former Yugoslavia.

When she was seven her family moved to Vratnik in Sarajevo. She sang in her school choir from the first grade, and as a girl slipped out to sing at events of the Bratstvo cultural society, encouraged by her brother Mustafa. After passing an audition at Radio Sarajevo she took voice lessons, and her first archive recording there was the sevdalinka "Moj behare"; she went on to record more than a hundred sevdalinkas for the radio.

Her first EP, with "Ljubav žene" and "Burmu ću tvoju nositi", came out in 1973 with composer Mijat Božović and the folk orchestra of Radio-TV Sarajevo, and her first album, Voljela sam oči nevjerne, in 1974. Božović's "Voljela sam oči zelene" became her signature song for years, and "Ja te pjesmom zovem", sung at her debut at the Ilidža festival, was a big hit as well.

In 1979 she, her husband Muradif Brkić and Braco Đirlo founded Sarajevo Disk, home of the rock band Vatreni poljubac. Her version of Milić Vukašinović's "Volio sam, volio", sung as "Voljela sam, voljela", sold more than a million copies, and the album Čežnja (1980), produced by Nikola Borota Radovan, merged folk with rock and electronic arrangements and also sold over a million. Sanjam (1982) made her a major Yugoslav star; she played sports arenas and gave fourteen sold-out concerts in seven days at Dom sindikata in Belgrade.

For Jugodisk she recorded Dobro došli prijatelji (1983), Tebi ljubavi (1984) with the ballad "Ali pamtim još", Nema kajanja (1985) with Južni vetar, and Bolno srce (1986), whose title song won the Vogošća festival. She spent the whole war of 1992 to 1995 in Sarajevo.

Nek' je od srca (1999) brought the duet "Crni snijeg" with Hari Varešanović of Hari Mata Hari. In November 2004 she marked three decades on stage at Zetra, with guests including Halid Bešlić, Josipa Lisac and Esma Redžepova, and Žena kao žena gave her the ballad "Mojoj majci". In 2013 her duet with Dragana Mirković, "Kad nas vide zagrljene", ended with the two singers embracing on the Old Bridge in Mostar.