Ardalan Bakr (Kurdish: ئەردەلان باكر) (25 September 1967 - 11 October 2009 ) was a Kurdish folk singer, peshmerga, and songwriter born in the neighborhood of Khanaqa in the city of Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. Many of his albums broke sale records and he started the new types of Kurdish music genres. His main music genre was R&B/Soul.
Contents
1 Early Life
2 1991-2000
3 2000-2008
4 Sickness and Death
5 Albums
$Early Life$
At the age of 18, Ardalan became a peshmerga because he was tired of how the Iraqi government was torturing and killing Kurds and got thoughts of patriotism. His comrades and friends often described him as a brave young boy at the time. He had talent too and that was his magnificent voice. He would always sing for the peshmerga at war times. He was sent to Baghdad, where he was a spy for a couple of years until he was caught and tortured. After being released in 1991, he returned back to Erbil and after a short while, fled to Stockholm, Sweden because he was worried the Baath Party was still after him.
$1991-2000$
In 1993, Ardalan returned to Kurdistan for a vacation where he released his first cassette consisting of some songs. The cassette made Ardalan close to his fans at the time. Ardalan wrote a lot of songs and created a lot of albums, putting his heart and love into them so they became as perfect as possible. And he made a lot of other friends who were also Kurdish singers. Some of his better-known Albums are ”Kchi Gawr” ”Beyno” ”Hawraman” ”Zor Atrsm” and ”Xawne” excluding the songs that were put on cassettes. Ardalan was a master of singing the Kurdish Genre of “Hayrani Dashti Hawler” which he would be really touched by when singing. Ardalan would always help his fellow Kurdish singers in texts and music. He made Zakaria Abdulla into a singer by letting him sing on different occasions that made Zakaria become the pop artist he is today.
$2000-2008$
The distance of him and Kurdistan could always be heard through his voice because was really homesick. Ardalan fell in love but never got to get married. At Kurdish events in Sweden, such as “Newroz” he would always be the main singer. In 2008, Ardalan returned once again back to Kurdistan to make multiple concerts for the Kurdish people. He made several concerts and met the former Kurdish president Masoud Barzani. He was really happy that after many years of struggle, Iraqi Kurdistan became free.
$Sickness and Death$
Ardalan got really sick in 2009, and in the fall of 2009, and on the 11th of October, Ardalan died at the Karolinska University hospital in Stockholm due to a failure in both his kidneys which stopped his heart. His friends in Sweden had the last farewell with him before sending his body back to Erbil where his other friends, family, and relatives waited for his arrival. Later, he was driven around his home city of Erbil one last time and in his neighborhood, as written in his testament and later buried in the cemetery of Sheikh Ahmad in Erbil.
$Albums$
Kchi Gawr (Christian girl) 1996
Payam (A Promise) 1997
Ardalan 2000
Sham (Candle) 2002
Xawne bu(It was a dream) 2007
. Birth and Young life. Life in Sweden. Sickness and Death.[1]