Merziye Feriqi

About Merziye Feriqi

Merziye Feriqi was a Kurdish singer from Marivan and one of the best-loved female voices of Sorani song. Born in 1958 to a family from Sanandaj, she grew up with the Kurdish programmes of Radio Baghdad and worked as a village schoolteacher before joining the Sanandaj music ensemble in 1977. In 1978 she married the singer Naser Razazi, and the two became one of the best-known couples in Kurdish music.

After the 1979 revolution she joined the Peshmerga of the Komala party, and in the mountains she sang with Korî Bangewaz, a choir whose revolutionary songs were broadcast on the movement's radio stations. In the mid-1980s she and Razazi went into exile in Sweden. Through the Kurdish satellite channel Med TV her songs reached homes across all parts of Kurdistan, and she later presented a programme on women's rights for Medya TV.

Her repertoire has three strands: gentle love songs such as Hiwa Megrî and Le Yarewe, songs of the struggle such as Hevalî Pêşmerge, and lullabies and children's songs such as Lanik Lanik Lankolê. She died in Stockholm on 18 September 2005, aged 47, after surgery.

Her younger sister, Leyla Feriqi, born in Marivan in 1975, is also a popular singer, and the two recorded duets together, among them Ay Çarey Dil (Ay Şil).

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