Sinan Sakić

Sinan Sakić was a Serbian folk and pop-folk singer, born on 13 October 1956 in Loznica. His mother Đulka worked in a factory, and his father Rašid played in a military orchestra and later in the Zagreb and Belgrade philharmonics. As a boy he wanted to learn the piano, but his father would not allow it. At 13 he was already drumming in a folk band, and he kept drumming until 1984, for a time with the bassist Bratislav Braca Dinkić.

After his army service in Pula he worked as a welder and a waiter and sang in Loznica's kafanas; when a guest offered him 500 dinars to sing, he began to think of music as a career. His first songs, "Sreli smo se mnogo kasno" and "Jedna tuga za dva druga", came out in 1978, and two more followed in 1979.

At the start of the 1980s he joined Južni vetar, founded by Miodrag Mile Ilić, and became one of its great five singers, alongside Dragana Mirković, Mile Kitić, Šemsa Suljaković and Kemal Malovčić. His first album with the band, in 1982, sold around 100,000 copies, and Pogledaj me (1984) about 700,000. The hits kept coming: "Miko, druže moj", "Ej, od kad sam se rodio", "Sudbina me na put šalje", "Izađi na pet minuta" and the duet "Svi grešimo" with Dragana Mirković. In 1986 a tour with Južni vetar ended at Tašmajdan in Belgrade before 18,000 people, and in the late 1980s, touring with Nervozni poštar, he set attendance records at Zetra in Sarajevo, with about 15,000, and in Tuzla.

He left Južni vetar in 1991 after Ilić was taken to hospital, recorded Ljubila me žena ta (1992) and Korak do sna (1993) with the producer Zoran Starčević, and returned in 1994 to record with the band until 2001, among other albums Zoko, moja Zoko (1996). On his own again, he had a gold album with ...Na eks (2002), and Emotivac (2005) brought "Lepa do bola". His last album, Jedina (2014), came with six music videos, and he played his last concert at Tašmajdan on 3 July 2017. In all he released 26 albums and 12 compilations.

In April 2018 doctors found that he needed a liver transplant. Sinan Sakić died at his home in Belgrade's Dorćol on the morning of 1 June 2018, aged 61, and was buried at the Muslim cemetery in Loznica on 4 June. His son Medo is also a singer.