Upon graduating Cornish College of the Arts Seattle Washington, studying jazz guitar, Yakup Trana emerged onto the Seattle music scene in 2001 with his first band Akdeniz Guitar Trio releasing his first album Akdeniz. The group consisted of three guitarist playing avant-guard jazz mixed with Spanish guitar style.
In 2002 Yakup formed the band TRANA. Alternative rock sound releasing his second album Weird World (Lake Samm Records). The album was written by Yakup (lead guitarist) and sung by Stephen Schmidt. After two years of touring and recording the bands next album In the Red (which never released) the singer and Yakup parted ways.
Over the course of three albums, Yakup decided it was time to take the lead not only playing guitar but with vocals as well. In 2004 Yakup emerges this time as a solo artist. Shortly after writing and producing his 4th album (this time written in Turkish) SUNU BUNU the artist YAKUP was signed to EMI late 2004 and released SUNU BUNU (EMI/IJJ Productions) in March 2005. The release launched his career in Turkey and Europe over the next three years. The hit single Gecmez hit the charts strong and the video was in rotation for months. In 2006 YAKUP released a single including a bonus track with the most prominant rock band of Turkey, Duman.
Constantly increasing popularity with his fans has taken him to the next level with the release of his 5th album Kaos (Voltaj/IJJ Productions) in 2007. The song Bilmece (The Riddle) hit all major networkTV stations in Turkey as number one for weeks while tracking fast up the MTV World Chart Express charts, in Europe landing him again at #1 spot for top new artist. With YAKUP's success growing and the fans demanding more no surprise that the single "Platonik" brought YAKUP to the top of the charts as number one while getting over a million views on YouTube. YAKUP continued to hit the charts with all 3 singles that followed. The album Kaos brought worldwide attention and YAKUP knew the timing was right to go back to his musical roots in Seattle, late fall of 2009.
Currently Yakup is finalizing his next release The Will of the Absolute while producing 3 other albums for Funky Moon Records artists.
