Şebnem Ferah

Şebnem Ferah is a Turkish rock singer, songwriter and guitarist, one of the best-known women in Turkish rock. She was born on 12 April 1972 in Yalova, the youngest of three daughters of a Turkish family that had emigrated from Skopje, and that Skopje family is why she is on Muzika-Balkan under Macedonia. Her father, a teacher, gave her her first lessons, and she grew up with the Rumelian folk songs he played on bağlama, mandolin and piano. Her career has been based in Istanbul since the early 1990s.

At boarding school in Bursa she got her first guitar and formed the band Pegasus, which played its first concert at a rock festival in Bursa in 1987. In 1988 she founded Volvox, an all-female hard rock band, later joined by Özlem Tekin. She studied economics in Ankara for two years, then left to move to Istanbul, where Volvox played the bars until it split in 1994.

Sezen Aksu and Onno Tunç had seen Volvox on television, and soon Ferah was singing backing vocals for Aksu. Her first solo album, Kadın, came out on 15 November 1996 and gave her "Vazgeçtim Dünyadan", "Yağmurlar", "Bu Aşk Fazla Sana" and "Fırtına". After the death of her sister she released the darker Artık Kısa Cümleler Kuruyorum in 1999, and after losing her father in the 1999 earthquake came Perdeler (2001), with "Sigara" and a version of the title song recorded with the Finnish band Apocalyptica.

Kelimeler Yetse (2003) brought "Ben Şarkımı Söylerken" and "Mayın Tarlası", and Can Kırıkları (2005) was her heaviest record. Her concert of 10 March 2007 in Istanbul with the Istanbul Symphonic Project became Turkey's best-selling concert DVD, and she won PowerTürk awards for best concert and best female artist. Benim Adım Orman (2009) and Od (2013) both entered the sales chart at number one, and Parmak İzi followed in 2018.

After six years away from the stage, she announced a concert at KüçükÇiftlik Park in Istanbul for 3 June 2026, and the tickets sold out within minutes. The playlist gathers Şebnem Ferah's albums and live recordings, from Kadın to Parmak İzi.