Murat Boz

Early life

Murat Boz was born on 7 March 1980 in Karadeniz Ereğli, Zonguldak Province, as the second child of Ayşe Nedret and Cafer Boz. He has an elder brother named Ali. After finishing his elementary and secondary school, Boz's mother sent him to music classes and competitions and later encouraged him to study fine arts in high school. After passing an entrance exam in 1995, Boz moved to Istanbul and enrolled in Istanbul Anadolu Fine Arts High School and took courses for four years. At that time, he learned piano and violin. In 1998, he became the winner on "High School Music and Folk Music Competition" organized by Milliyet newspaper. After that he took jazz vocal courses in Istanbul Bilgi University and later began his studies at ITU Turkish Music State Conservatory.

In 2000, Boz started to make money and pursued his musical career at various music halls as a backing vocalist and first became a vocalist for Emel Müftüoğlu. He continued his career by vocalizing at the concerts or on studio albums for numerous singers including Burcu Güneş, Demet Sağıroğlu, Hepsi, Hande Yener, Nazan Öncel, Nil Karaibrahimgil, Nilüfer and Tarkan. He collaborated with Tarkan more than any of the other artists and vocalized in his songs for six years. Boz first entered the Turkish music scene in 2004, when he appeared in Nil Karaibrahimgil's music video "Bronzlaşmak". In 2005, he featured in "Yalan", a single from Hepsi's album, Bir.

2006–10: Maximum and Şans

It wasn't until July 2006 when Boz released his first single "Aşkı Bulamam Ben", on which he worked with Nil Karaibrahimgil once again. The music video for this single was directed by Süleyman Yüksel. In October 2006, it was announced that the singer had completed his first studio album. In early 2007, his debut album titled Maximum was released under Stardium label, and proved to be a great success as well, propelling him even further in the Turkish music scene. Various artists including Tarkan, Ümit Sayın, Ozan Çolakoğlu and Mustafa Ceceli worked on the album. Boz's single "Maximum" earned him his first number one single on the Billboard Turkey chart and the third single "Püf" was ranked by OGAE as the third suitable song to represent Turkey at the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2007, Boz won the "Best New Artist" Award at three different award ceremonies: Golden Butterfly Awards, Istanbul FM Golden Awards and Kral TV Video Music Awards.

In July 2008, Boz released his extended play album, Uçurum, under the label Dokuz Sekiz Müzik. A single with the same name written by Soner Sarıkabadayı peaked at 5th on the Turkish Billboard chart.

In the summer of 2008, Boz discussed his intentions on preparing a second studio album. In February 2009, he released his second studio album "Şans", under the label Dokuz Sekiz Müzik, which sold 17,000 copies and later earned Boz an award from İstanbul FM as the "Best Album by a Male Artist". The single "Para Yok", which was released with a music video ahead of the album's release date, peaked at 5th on the Turkish Billboard chart. Following "Para Yok", separate music videos for the singles "Özledim", "Her Şeyi Yak", "Sallana Sallana", "Gümbür Gümbür", "İki Medeni İnsan" and "Buralardan Giderim" were released respectively. "Özledim" and "Sallana Sallana" also peaked at 5th on the Turkish Billboard chart. For the music video of "İki Medeni İnsan" a new version was created which featured vocals by the single's writer Soner Sarıkabadayı, and it was later released in digital format. The single was nominated at 17th Kral Music Awards in the "Best Duet" category, but lost to Mustafa Ceceli and Elvan Günaydın's single "Eksik".

In April 2010, Boz released the single "Hayat Sana Güzel", written and composed by Soner Sarıkabadayı. The single was used as a promotional song for a campaign with the same name to search for a new vocalist. One of the remixed versions of the song was nominated as the "Best Remixed Song" at 2011 Kral Music Awards but didn't win.

2011–15: Aşklarım Büyük Benden and Hadi İnşallah

Boz first announced that his third studio album would be released in the summer of 2010. At the end of the same year, he traveled to London in order to make preparations for the album. In April 2011, a single with the same name as the album was released in digital format and accompanied by a music video directed by Burak Ertaş. In May 2011, his 3rd studio album Aşklarım Büyük Benden was released. It was distributed through Dokuz Sekiz Müzik. The album sold 35,000 copies and was nominated as the Most Special Album and Best Album by Kadir Has University and Siyaset Dergisi respectively of which he won the first one. The singles "Hayat Öpücüğü", "Geri Dönüş Olsa", "Kalamam Arkadaş" "Bulmaca" and "Soyadımsın" became popular hit songs, with separate music videos produced for each of them. Of these singles, "Geri Dönüş Olsa" and "Kalamam Arkadaş" topped the Turkish Charts. Finally, in the 39th Golden Butterfly Awards, he won the "Best Turkish Pop Music Male Soloist" Award, and also received the "Best Male Artist" Award at Kral Music Awards.

In August 2012, Murat Boz released his first remix album called Dance Mix. The album contained eight remixes from Boz's second and third albums alongside the remake of "Yazmışsa Bozmak Olmaz", originally a single from Ozan Doğulu's 2011 album 130 Bpm Allegro which featured vocals by Boz. On the same day as the album's release, Boz divorced his wife Eliz Sakuçoğlu in Hazro, Diyarbakır, whom he had married on 10 October 2008 in Passau, Germany. Two music videos were released for the remixes of "Özledim" and "Geri Dönüş Olsa" and Boz won an award on the category of "Best Remix" for the latter one at Turkey Music Awards. In February 2013, Oğuz Berkay Fidan released his first single "Olmuyor", featuring Murat Boz, which was a huge success in Turkey. Also on the Turkey Music Awards he performed for the first time his new single called "Vazgeçmem" from his forthcoming album. The music video for "Vazgeçmem" was directed by Nihat Odabaşı. In April 2013, "Vazgeçmem" was released only on a Digital Single on iTunes and other digital music websites for sale. The song reached on the Top 5 peaking at 3 on the Turkish Airplay on radio and first at Turkish Digital Sales. In July 2013, Boz announced he was working on his new album. In April 2014, the single "İltimas" by Gülşen was released which featured Boz.

2016–present: Kardeşim Benim, Janti and Dönerse Senindir

In January 2016, Kardeşim Benim was released in Turkey's cinemas. It was Boz's second acting experience and he shared the leading cast with Burak Özçivit and Aslı Enver. In April 2016, his fourth studio album Janti was released by Doğan Music Company. A single with the same name as the album became number-one hit in Turkey while a second single titled "Adını Bilen Yazsın" reached number two on the charts. In the following months he played in a movie titled Dönerse Senindir alongside İrem Sak and Yasemin Allen. It was released in December 2016.

In January 2017, Boz declared that he would vote "yes" on Turkish constitutional referendum.

Artistry

An instrumentalist who plays piano, violin and ney, Boz is a pop music singer. He believes that only singing a song while performing live on stage is not enough and admires the quality that American singer Madonna has shown in her shows and aims to gain the same level of quality in performance as her. The way of his appearance and style in his first songs resembled Tarkan. Boz, who had been a back vocalist for Tarkan early in his career, expressed his uncomfortability of the comparisons between Tarkan and himself. He gained prominence with his dance songs in Maximum and Şans, and later included tempo songs in his third album Aşklarım Büyük Benden. As he desired to have more mature songs in his third album, he made songs that he thought would have more spiritual sense in them. The album received positive reviews from the critics who said that Boz is in a "good orientation" and also wrote his songs in a theme "close to maturity".

Other ventures

Alongside working on his albums and singles, Boz has participated and taken part in various other projects. He has been a judge on reality singing competition O Ses Türkiye for five seasons. In season one, four contestants from his group entered the final rounds, and Oğuz Berkay Fidan, one of the remaining eight competitors, won the competition with the majority of votes, making Boz the champion judge of the show's first season. Ceren Şehirlioğlu of Hürriyet, praised Boz's role as a judge and described him as "very conscientious, compassionate. On the other hand, his high energy brings a lot of attention from time to time. With his occasional high school-level behavior, he's one of the most friendly persons among the judges." In the end of 2011, in order to help the victims of Van earthquake, Boz organized a series of Pop concerts in Van in December 2011 to raise money. In 2012, he took part in a program organized by Greenpeace for protecting the North Pole, and aided the company by appearing in its advertising film and sang in Turkish. Besides these, he has appeared in numerous commercials for various companies. In 2012, he took part in an advertisement as a result of a contest held within a group of selected people and appeared in its video clip.

Studio Albums

Compilations

Filmography