Ardalan Bakr

About Ardalan Bakr

Ardalan Bakr was a Kurdish singer from Erbil whose songs, recorded mostly in exile, are still widely played in Kurdistan and the diaspora. He was born on 25 September 1967 in the Khanaqa neighbourhood of Erbil. As a young man he joined the Kurdish liberation movement and spent several years as a peshmerga before he turned to music and singing.

After the uprising of March 1991 he left Kurdistan and settled in Sweden. From there he released five albums, including Kchi Gawr (1997), Beyno (1998), Hawraman (2000), Zor Detirsim (2003) and Xewnek Bu (2007). He sang at Kurdish events across Europe, above all at Newroz celebrations, and became a familiar voice of the Kurdish diaspora. At Newroz 2008 he returned to Kurdistan for the first time in many years and gave concerts in Erbil.

He died after an illness at the Karolinska hospital in Stockholm on 10 October 2009, aged 42. His body was flown home, and he was buried in the Sheikh Ahmad cemetery in Erbil. On 6 March 2014 a memorial statue of him was unveiled in Minara Park in Erbil. His family and fans have kept his memory alive: in 2025 the musician Miran Ali, with the support of his brother Goran Bakr, released a new video, Wai le To Dunya, which used artificial intelligence to recreate his voice.

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