Tarkan was born on 17th October 1972 in Alzey, Germany; as the fifth of his six brother and his sisters. His passion for music started when he was only three years old.
When he came back to Turkey for the 6th grade, at fourteen years of age, his big interest in music led him towards taking “Turkish Classical Music” classes besides the regular high school education.
During his education in the Üsküdar Musical Association between 1990 and 1992, he had the opportunity to work with highly respected Turkish composers, who encouraged him to join the music world. After graduating from high school and receiving the results of the university exam, he took the decision to go back to Germany.
However, right at this time, his destiny has changed majorly when he met Mehmet Söðütoðlu and Tarkan’s first album, “Yine Sensiz” (1993) which founded his big-time entry to the professional music world, was produced/released by Istanbul Plak. Initially, he met his fans through his concerts and established a strong base in the music market by selling 700 thousand albums, in a very short time.
During the preparation process of his second album, Tarkan met Sezen Aksu, one of the most important/prestigious voices of Turkey. The song “Þýkýdým” was included in his second album as a result of this, these two singers join together.
Tarkan performed a total of 74 concerts in Turkey and in Europe with his second album “Aacayipsin” which was released in 1995. 25 of these concerts, all performed in stadiums, formed the biggest sponsored national tour until that day, whereby Tarkan has reached to 750.000 people in different cities in Turkey. As a result of all these firsts, Tarkan has reached another milestone and his album sold nearly 2.5 million.
Afterwards he went to New York to study the language. Over that period, Tarkan met Ahmet Ertegün and started to work on new projects with him and Atlantic Records. Between 1994 and 1997, he made 3 big Europe tours consisting of a total of 12 cities in Holland, Germany and Switzerland. His concert in New York Palladium in 1995 has been broadcasted live in Turkey.
In July 1997, Tarkan made a big rise, again with a Sezen Aksu song, which was in his third album “Ölürüm Sana”. After working almost two years on this album, Tarkan, with Sezen Aksu’s contribution/support, got very successful and introduced himself to the international music market. His third album, with which Tarkan had his voice heard in the world, sold 3.5 million.
Stadium Concerts
After this success, Tarkan started performing concerts immediately. The stadium concerts in Istanbul , Ankara , Izmir, Adana and Antalya, were followed by a Turkey Tour including 10 more cities. During his promotional visit to South America, his fans queued a mile long to get a glimbse of Tarkan. The audience watched him with great enthusiasm and even joined him in his songs.
In December 1997, Tarkan went to a new Europe tour, consisting of 18 concerts in 17 (different) cities. In the meantime, his vision that artists’ works are not limited to albums and video-clips, and his goal to own his own music-production company, were the starting points of ”Hitt Müzik” project.
In 1998, his popularity in Europe increased a lot with the tranfer of the license rights for the “Ölürüm Sana” album, from Istanbul Plak to the famous French company, Polygram. By doing this, Tarkan succeeded to make whole of Europe sing in Turkish, first with his single “Þýmarýk” and then his album “Ölürüm Sana”.
And again with the same album, he won the Platinium Record in Mexico, and the Golden Record(s) in France, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden and Colombia. The internaitonal tour which started in spring 1999, including many countries as France, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Ukrania, Morocco, Australia and Tunisia finished in the summer of the same year.
In February 2000, Tarkan came back to Turkey to fulfill his military service. Right before joining the military service,on 14th January, he gave a concert in Mydonose Showland, where special light and sound systems were used for the first time inTurkey, to raise funds for the 17th August earthquake victims. As his responsibility increased for he became a worlwide artist, Tarkan has accelerated the production of his new album, after he has done his military service.
The “Karma” album, outcome of two-years of hard work, was recorded in studios in the U.S.A., France and Egypt. And in May 2001, the “Kuzu kuzu” singleconsisting of 5 different versions, was released. The "Karma" album, released at the beginning of August, right after the "Kuzu Kuzu" single, met its audience with a chain of concerts, which had started on 7th of August 2001 in Istanbul.
Following a very successful tour of 16 concerts in the major cities of Turkey, his second single "HÜP", again a hit song from the last album "KARMA", was released in January 2002.
