Mile Kitić

Mile Kitić, born Milojko Kitić on 1 January 1952 in Donji Cerani near Derventa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a folk and turbo-folk singer. He grew up in a family of six and played the tamburica at four, and at primary school in Osinja his teacher Bogoljub Kaloperović put him in charge of the school music section, where he played double bass in the tamburica orchestra. He finished the traffic technical school in Sarajevo in 1970, and as a teenager also played football for Unis in Vogošća.

At sixteen he won the Prvi glas Vogošća contest with "U svijetu sam život ostavio" and began singing at celebrations. After playing with the orchestras Prinčevi and Mlade Sarajlije he recorded "Čija si ljubav" and "Ja želim da sam sunce" in 1975, though Discogs lists "O, gitaro" from 1974 as his first single. At the 1980 Ilidža festival "Mala iz Novog Pazara" took the journalists' first prize, and his debut album Moja slatka mala followed in 1982, with "Ako te budu pitali", a gift from Nazif Gljiva. The second album, Jorgovani plavi (1983), brought no big hit but went platinum through slow, steady sales.

In 1984 he joined the production house Južni vetar, where he sang alongside Sinan Sakić, Dragana Mirković, Kemal Malovčić and Šemsa Suljaković. The album Čaša ljubavi became a national success and its title song a lasting Yugoslav hit, and Ja neću ljepšu (1985) did even better. "Hej, vi hitri, bijeli dani", "Istinu ti u očima čitam", "Lažu me zelene oči", "Moj sokole" and "Kockar" were among his biggest hits before he left Južni vetar, and with Dragana Mirković and Indira Radić he is counted the most successful singer to come out of it.

During the Bosnian War he and his family fled to Belgrade. He kept recording through the 1990s, took second place at the 1993 Poselo godine 202 with "Gubitnik", and returned to the top with "Kraljica trotoara" in 1996, "Šampanjac" in 2005 and, at 63, "Kilo dole, kilo gore" in 2015. Albums such as Nokaut (2014), Mađioničar (2016) and Kazanova (2019) followed. In 2023 he received the award for national estrada-music artist of Serbia at the Sabor narodne muzike Srbije.

Mile Kitić is married to the singer Marta Savić, and their daughter Elena Kitić is also a singer. He has two daughters from two marriages and lives in Belgrade and Hanover.