Kenan Tairovski

Kenan Tairovski, known as Keni, was a Macedonian folk singer of Turkish descent who was at his most famous across Yugoslavia in the 1970s. He was born in 1945 in Carev Dvor, a village near Resen in the Prespa region, and spent almost half a century in music. He died in Resen on 11 July 2017.

After primary school in Carev Dvor he moved to Belgrade in the early 1960s, where he lived with his older brother Nihat and went to a secondary music school. His first single, "Sviri mi stari cigo", with words by Budimir Jovanović Buco, came out in 1968.

His best-selling songs, "Fikrija" and "Edita", were his own compositions. As an exclusive artist of the Zagreb label Jugoton he recorded three LPs and fourteen singles, and he performed and toured with stars such as Miroslav Ilić, Vera Matović and Nada Topčagić.

In Macedonia he released thirty-five CDs. Among his best-known Macedonian songs are "Dano Danice, prespanska ubavice", "Žane žanina", "Igraj čoček bitilčanko", "Prespo moja" and "Care mori", many of them with lyrics by the journalist Gjorgji Gjorgjievski. Among his later songs is "Ti angelu slaven", dedicated to Toše Proeski.

He toured Australia fifteen times and the United States five times, and played across Europe many times more. In 1994 "Žane žanina" was recognised as the most listened-to song on the Australian continent. On 5 August 2015 his home region honoured him with the concert Prespa za Kenan in the sports hall in Resen, where many Macedonian singers and the Resen folk societies Taše Miloševski and Kardešlik performed his songs.