Lior Narkis

Lior Narkis is an Israeli pop singer, one of the big names of Mizrahi pop. He was born on 8 November 1976 in Holon. His father, David Narkis, was of Babylonian Jewish origin, and his mother, Hanna Narkis, was of Serbian-Jewish descent, with Greek-Tunisian-Jewish roots as well. That Serbian family line is why he is on Muzika-Balkan: besides Hebrew and French, he speaks Serbian. He lives in Savyon with his wife Sapir Vanunu and their three children.

He wanted to be a singer from childhood and released his first album, Tfilat Chayay (The Prayer of My Life), at the age of 16, in 1994. A few years later, during his military service, he joined Tamir Tzur to form what his biography calls the first Mediterranean musical group. Albums followed almost every year: The World Is Like a Wheel (1995), You Are the Star (1997), Signs (1998) and Life for Love (1999).

His sixth album, Rak Itakh (Only with You), from 2000, put him at the centre of Israeli music. Its song "Lekol Echad Yesh" (Everyone Has) was chosen as Israel's song of the year and became a favourite of football fans. Ze Mehalev (Straight from the Heart) followed in 2001 and was another success.

In 2003 his song "Milim La'Ahava" (Words for Love) won Israel's national final for the Eurovision Song Contest, and he finished 19th of the 26 finalists. His eighth album took its name from that song. Later albums include Street Cat (2005), Good Evening (2010), Diamond (2014) and We Made History (2016), and in 2017 he sang at the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games. The playlist gathers his official music videos, from "Az yalla" and "Shigaat" to "Achshav" and "Achat Kamoch", most of them in Hebrew.