HADISE

Hadise Acikgоz (born 22 October 1985) is a Turkish singer-songwriter, dancer, and television personality. Born and raised in Belgium, her family settled in Sivas, Turkey.

Hadise was born in the town of Mol, located near the city of Antwerp. Her name was chosen by one of her grandparents, having originally being intended for her older sister. Hadise’s parents emigrated to Belgium from Sivas, Turkey. She grew up with her older sister, Hulya, a younger sister Derya and also a younger brother named Murat.Hadise was 11 years old when her parents divorced.

Hadise studied economics and modern languages in university. She is fluent in five languages: Turkish, Dutch, French, German and English.

At the age of 18 and with the support of her family Hadise participated in the first season of the show Idool, the Flemish version of the Pop Idol series. She failed to qualify for the finals, however, her appearance was acknowledged by her soon-to-be manager Johan Hendrickx. Hendrickx contacted Hadise explaining how impressed he was with her performance on the show and offered her an album contract.

After signing to 2 Brain records, Hadise recorded her debut single “Sweat”, which was released in November 2004. Although a music video wasn’t shot for the single, the song managed to peak at No. 19 on the Ultratop 50 singles chart. She later released the single “Stir Me Up” which gained popularity in both Belgium and especially Turkey, where the song became a huge hit in the summer of 2006. Hadise then released her single “Milk Chocolate Girl”, the biggest hit from her debut album, which peaked at No. 13 on the Ultratop 50. A year after releasing her debut single, in November 2005, her first studio album Sweat was released with about half of the songs being written by Hadise herself. The album notably included the singles “Ain’t No Love Lost” and “Bad Boy”. “Bad Boy” peaked at No. 22 on the Ultratop.

She self-titled album, was originally intended to be named On High Heels, referring to the fact that she had grown enormously in her professional career and knowledge. Hadise began to work on her second studio album in December 2007. The album was recorded in several countries, including Belgium, France, Turkey and Italy. The lead single, “A Good Kiss”, was released in September 2007. This became her sixth consecutive single to chart on the Belgian “Ultratop 50”. The song was also successful in Turkey, where it became her first single to chart on the “Turkish Billboard Chart”. The song was later translated into Turkish by Sezen Aksu as “Deli Oglan”, and it became one of the most played songs in clubs in the summer of 2008. In Turkish, subsequently the single managed to peak at 3 on the Turkish Charts. Due to leaked images of Hadise being affectionate with a male model, the music video “Deli Oglan” generated controversy amongst those who considered the images to be ‘racy’ or ‘erotic’.Hadise later removed these scenes from the video.

Hadise released two more singles in Belgium “My Body”, which was her best-selling single in Belgium (until the release of “Dum Tek Tek”) and “My Man and the Devil on His Shoulder”, her first single to not chart on the Ultratop 50 chart. Also the song “My Body” became popular in the Balkan countries and started airing at the Bulgarian Balkanika TV’s playlist.

“Hadise”, which was released in June 2008, has become the most successful album of Hadise’s career so far, as it was the first album to enter the Belgium Album chart, at 19. It was the first album of Hadise to be released onto iTunes. She co-wrote ten of the album’s songs with Yves Gaillard.

In June 2008, Hadise appeared on Serdar Ortac’s album Nefes on a track called “Dusman”. In July 2008, Hadise revealed that she had met Kevin Federline during her trip to the United States and told the media that he had produced some music for her to use on a future album. A new video had surfaced of Hadise telling Belgian viewers that her future album would include urban beats along with some of the producers and choreographers had worked with Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys, and many more artists that are big in the game. In August 2008, she was nominated as the Best Turkish Act on MTV Europe Music Awards but lost to Emre Aydın.

In 2007, Hadise stated that she would never take part in the Eurovision Song Contest after her best friend Kate Ryan, who represented Belgium, failed to qualify for the final round of the contest.A year later in 2008, Hadise expressed her desire to participate in the contest representing Turkey instead of Belgium. She was asked twice by the Belgian broadcasters to represent Belgium but each time she refused the offer. She told Belgian newspapers she wanted to represent Turkey instead of Belgium because she had already won many Belgian awards and also because the Eurovision Song Contest wasn’t popular in Belgium anymore, whereas it was in Turkey. She also said that she preferred to represent Turkey as it was an internal selection rather than a public voting.

The rumors of Hadise’s participation at Eurovision on behalf of Turkey first surfaced in 2007. On 24 October 2008, Ibrahim Sahin, the general manager of Turkish broadcaster TRT, announced that Hadise had won an official poll beating out the likes of Şebnem Ferah to represent Turkey as the 2009 participant at the 54th Eurovision Song Contest.

It was revealed that Hadise had complete control over the production of the song and was in charge of deciding the lyricist, composer, producer and the language of the song. It was later revealed by the Turkish newspaper Sabah, that Hadise had presented three songs to TRT, who then chose the entry internally. On 31 December 2008, Hadise performed the song “Dum Tek Tek” for the first time on TRT. The song, which was the final choice for the competition, was written by Stefan Fernande and produced by Sinan Akcıl. The official music video for “Dum Tek Tek” was later leaked online. For promoting the song she traveled to countries such as Greece, Malta, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria. Meanwhile, she was dealing with some health issues. On 16 May 2009, Hadise performed “Dum Tek Tek” in the Russian capital, Moscow, and received points from Azerbaijan, Belgium, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland and Macedonia. With 177 points in total, Turkey earned the fourth place behind Norway, Iceland and Azerbaijan.

Hadise then began working on her third studio album, titled “Fast Life”, which she first revealed on her official MySpace page, during her preparation for the Eurovision Song Contest. The album was released on 15 May 2009, a day prior to the Eurovision final. This was the first album from her to contain all English tracks. It featured her Eurovision entry “Dum Tek Tek” along with the two other songs she penned to TRT to enter the Eurovision Song Contest with. These were “Double Life” and “Supernatural Love”. “Dum Tek Tek” became Hadise’s first number one single in Belgium. The album became number 1 on Indonesia Music Lists and ranked at number 16 on Belgium Music Lists. She then released the single “Fast Life”, which she stated was based on her lifestyle during her Eurovision experience. The single was released on 15 June 2009 along with a music video, and won an award as the Best Turkish Song at Balkan Music Awards.

Just over a month after the release of Fast Life, Hadise officially released her first Turkish-language album, called Kahraman, on 19 June 2009. She again collaborated with producer Sinan Akcil, the producer of her Eurovision entry song “Dum Tek Tek” Volga Tamöz and Erdem Kınay also helped working on some tracks. Hadise described the album as a personal piece. Like her album Fast Life, this album also features Hadise’s Eurovision entry “Dum Tek Tek”, along with the other two possible songs, “Double Life” and “Supernatural Love”, which were presented to TRT. The tracks “Sirada” and “Kahraman” are the Turkish translation of Hadise’s songs, from her album Fast Life, “On Top” and “Hero” respectively. “Evlenmeliyiz” (Turkish for “We Should Get Married”) was released as the lead single in July 2009, and reached the top 40 in Turkey. It was the second Turkish single from Hadise to have a music video. It was directed by Emir Khalilzadeh. A music video for the single “Kahraman” was also directed by Senol Korkmaz and released as the second music video of the album. According to the statistical results announced at the end of 2009, Hadise was the most popular celebrity of the year.

After her successful tour Hadise began working on her second Turkish album, “Ask Kac Beden Giyer?”. The album was produced by Seyhan Muzik and released on 11 April 2011. It quickly became a huge success and sold more than 35,000 copies in Turkey. The preparation of the album took more time than expected due to Hadise’s breakup with her producer and boyfriend Sinan Akcil, who was supposed to be a songwriter for this album. As a dance-pop album, “Ask Kac Beden Giyer?”. received mixed reviews from critics with some finding it too ordinary and the others praising it for its high standards in the Turkish pop music category. The lead single, “Superman”, quickly began gaining airplay in Turkey and ranked number 5 on Turkce Top 20 and eventually became the eighth most-downloaded song of the year. The two following songs, “Ask Kac Beden Giyer?” and “Mesajımı Almıstır O”, were also released with separate music videos respectively. After the release of the album, Hadise was chosen as the main performer at the 38th Golden Butterfly Awards.

On 11 June 2012, Hadise released a single titled “Biz Burdayiz”. Besides the official version, a remix version of “Biz Burdayiz” was also released, featuring English vocals by rapper Kaan. She subsequently released another single titled “Visal”, which is in dubstep genre.

In January 2014, Hadise stated that her older sibling, Hulya Acıkgoz, would be directing her upcoming and subsequent music videos. Her sixth studio album, Tavsiye (English: Advice), was produced by Pasaj Muzik and released in August 2014. The album eventually sold 16,000 copies in Turkey.When questioned about the title of the album Hadise said that she had a song with the same title and she felt that the collection of songs on the album contained advice for women, hence she chose this title. The debut single from the album was confirmed to be “Nerdesin Askım”. The music and lyrics were provided by Alper Narman and Onur Ozdemir, the arrangement was done by Iskender Paydas, and Hulya Acikgoz directed the music video. The second single from Tavsiye was “Prenses”. This music video was also directed by Hulya Acikgoz . Music videos for the songs “Yaz Gunu” and “Bu Aralar” were released in 2015 and 2016 respectively. “Nerdesin Askım?” and “Bu Aralar” were the two songs from this album that became number-one hits in Turkey.

Hadise’s seventh studio album, “Sampiyon” was released in June 2017. A music video for the album’s lead single, which shares the same name as the album itself, was released on the same day and the song itself ranked second on the MusicTopTR Fastest Rising Chart in Turkey. The song “Sifir Tolerans” rose to the first position on the MusicTopTR Official Chart. Its music video was later described as erotic by the Radio and Television Supreme Council and, as a result, the channels that had broadcast it were fined. Hadise, who described this decision as an act of patriarchy and sexism, commented on the issue by saying: “Our male artists have had numerous scenes with actresses/models and they do not fall into the category of ‘erotic’ at all. As a woman, do I have to submit to this? No. ‘He’s a man so he does whatever he likes, she’s a woman so she stays quiet’ I will fight with this mindset until the end”.Two more music videos from the album were released for the songs “Farkimiz Var” and “Ask Dedigin”, the first of which ranked sixth on Turkey’s official music chart.