Sabri Fejzullahu

Sabri Fejzullahu is a Kosovo Albanian singer, actor and humorist, born on 16 September 1943 in Podujeva. For more than half a century he has been one of the best-loved voices of Kosovo's light entertainment music, popular songs with a melodic, often folk-coloured style, and he is just as well known for his comic roles on television.

He grew up in the Llap region around Podujeva, where, as he told Telegrafi, he heard the Beatles for the first time as a boy and dreamed of becoming a singer: "above all it was to show my friends that I was somebody". When he started singing light music, he recalls with a laugh, his father grumbled that he was now singing "zabavno". He went on to study Albanian language and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and acting at the Faculty of Fine Arts.

He recorded his first song in 1967, and by 1970 everyone in Kosovo knew his name: "Studenti pa dashuri" had become a big hit, above all among young people and students. At the festival Akordet e Kosovës he won eighteen Golden Ocarinas, and over the years he has recorded more than 800 songs and some 35 albums. His own favourite is "Pranverë në Prishtinë", beside "Hija e flokut tënd", "Ishte vonë të bija në dashuri", "Në ëndërr", "Moj e mira e diasporës", "Mërgimtari" and "Malli". He has sung duets with Sinan Vllasaliu and Kastriot Tusha, and one with the Albanian singer Ledina Çelo became a big hit.

From 1979 he also performed comedy sketches. His filmography lists more than twenty films and TV productions, most of them comedies: he acted with Ibrahim Krajkova and Rasim Thaqi, known as Leci and Cima, appeared in the TV comedy Qesh e ngjesh (1982) and the series Kur pranvera vonohet (1980), and in the TV series Autobusi he played Sheremet, an ignorant bus conductor; the series became a big television hit in the 1980s.

Music runs in the family. His son Ermal Fejzullahu is a well-known pop and folk singer, and his son Armend Fejzullahu sings with the rock band Votra; father and son recorded "Digju digju shpirti im" together. In recent years Sabri has kept releasing new songs and re-recordings of his hits, among them duets with Elira Shala and Jehona Lumi.