Lepa Brena

Lepa Brena, born Fahreta Jahić on 20 October 1960 on the outskirts of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a pop-folk singer and one of the best-known performers of the former Yugoslavia. She grew up in Brčko as the youngest of three children in a Bosniak family. Her nickname Brena came from her basketball coach, and the showman Minimaks added "Lepa", meaning beautiful. Her married name is Fahreta Jahić Živojinović.

In early 1980, at nineteen, she joined the band Lira Show, fronted by Saša Popović, and first sang with them on 6 April 1980 in Bačka Palanka. The band was renamed Slatki Greh in 1981. Their debut album, Čačak, Čačak, came out in February 1982, and Mile voli disko followed in November 1982, selling about 800,000 copies with songs such as "Duge noge" and "Dama iz Londona". Bato, Bato (1984) sold 1.1 million.

In 1983 she sang "Sitnije, Cile, sitnije" at Jugovizija, the Yugoslav selection for Eurovision. Her seventh album, Hajde da se volimo (1987), was built around a film of the same name, which had two sequels. "Čik pogodi" and "Biće belaja" came from Boli me uvo za sve, and the 1989 album Četiri godine brought "Jugoslovenka" and "Čuvala me mama". On 24 July 1990 she arrived by helicopter at the Vasil Levski National Stadium in Sofia, Bulgaria, to sing for 122,000 people.

She met the tennis player Slobodan Živojinović at the premiere of the second film, and they married on 7 December 1991 in Belgrade. In December 1998 the two of them and Saša Popović founded Grand Production, which grew into the biggest record label in the Balkans. Her hits of the 1990s included "Kazna Božija", "Luda za tobom" and "Ti si moj greh".

After Pomračenje sunca (2000) she took an eight-year break, then came back with Uđi slobodno... (2008) and Začarani krug (2011). In June 2009 she sang at Arena Zagreb, her first concert in Zagreb since 1990. Her world tour ran from Vienna in November 2017 to Cleveland in October 2022, and the album Zar je važno dal se peva ili pjeva (2018) came out during it. In December 2023 she shared the stage of Arena Zagreb with Jelena Rozga.

Lepa Brena has called herself Yugo-nostalgic, and her one official political stance has been support for a united Yugoslavia. The English Wikipedia puts her record sales at around 40 million and calls her the most commercially successful recording artist from the former Yugoslavia.