Murat Boz


Murat Boz is a Turkish singer-songwriter and actor. After finishing his primary and secondary education in his birthplace, Karadeniz Ereğli, he moved to Istanbul and enrolled in Istanbul Bilgi University in 1999 and later continued his studies at the Istanbul Technical University. At the same time he began to perform as a backing vocalist for Tarkan.
Boz began his solo career by releasing his first single, "Aşkı Bulamam Ben", in 2006. In the following year his first studio album titled Maximum was released, which sold numerous copies and earned him multiple awards. He continued his music career by releasing his subsequent albums Şans, Aşklarım Büyük Benden, and Janti. Numerous songs from these albums including "Maximum", "Uçurum", "Para Yok", "Özledim", "Sallana Sallana" and "Adını Bilen Yazsın" were among the top-five hits on Türkçe Top 20, and "Geri Dönüş Olsa", "Kalamam Arkadaş" and "Janti" were the number-one singles on the list. In addition to his singing career, he began acting by starring in the movie Hadi İnşallah, and later continued his acting career by playing leading roles in Kardeşim Benim, Dönerse Senindir and Öldür Beni Sevgilim.
An avid player of violin, drum and ney, he is also the commercial face for many brands. Boz is also a judge on the program O Ses Türkiye and was the winning judge on its first season. Throughout his career he has won numerous awards, including four Golden Butterfly Awards and two Kral Music Awards.

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 of the "High School Music and Folk Music Competition", organized by Milliyet newspaper. After taking jazz vocal courses at the Istanbul Bilgi University, he 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.

Career

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 by Stardium, 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.
, September 2010
In July 2008, Boz's extended play, Uçurum, was released by Dokuz Sekiz Müzik. A single with the same name, written by Soner Sarıkabadayı, peaked at the 5th position on the Turkish Billboard chart.
In the summer of 2008, Boz discussed his intentions on preparing a second studio album. In February 2009, his second studio album, Şans, was released by Dokuz Sekiz Müzik. It 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, ranked 5th on the Turkish Billboard chart. Following "Para Yok", separate music videos for the songs "Özledim", "Her Şeyi Yak", "Sallana Sallana", "Gümbür Gümbür", "İki Medeni İnsan" and "Buralardan Giderim" were released respectively. "Özledim" and "Sallana Sallana" also peaked at the 5th position on the Turkish Billboard chart. For the music video of "İki Medeni İnsan", a new version was created which featured vocals by the song's writer Soner Sarıkabadayı, and it was later released on digital platforms. The song 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 the 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 on digital platforms. It was accompanied by a music video directed by Burak Ertaş. In May 2011, his 3rd studio album Aşklarım Büyük Benden was released. It was distributed by Dokuz Sekiz Müzik. The album sold 35,000 copies and was nominated for the Most Special Album and the Best Album awards by Kadir Has University and Siyaset Dergisi respectively, of which it won the first one. The songs "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 songs, "Geri Dönüş Olsa" and "Kalamam Arkadaş" topped the Turkish Charts. Finally, at the 39th Golden Butterfly Awards, he won the "Best Turkish Pop Music Male Soloist" award, and also received the "Best Male Artist" award at the Kral Music Awards.
, 2012
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 in the category of "Best Remix" for the latter one at the 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 at 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 as a Digital Single on iTunes and other digital music websites for sale. The song reached the Top 5, peaking at 3 on the Turkish Airplay on radio and first at Turkish Digital Sales. In July 2013, Boz announced that 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 role with Burak Özçivit and Aslı Enver. In April 2016, his fourth studio album Janti was released by Doğan Music Company. A song with the same name as the album became the number-one hit in Turkey, while a second song 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 2015, Boz became close to his Kardeşim Benim costar, Aslı Enver, with whom he started a relationship in 2016. The couple broke up in May 2017. After a few months of reconciliation, they eventually ended their relationship in April 2018. In November 2018, they announced their reconciliation after 8 months of separation. However, they broke up again in October 2019.
In January 2017, Boz declared that he would vote "yes" on the Turkish constitutional referendum. Later that year, Boz was among the artists who were featured on Ozan Doğulu's album 130 BPM Forte and performed the song "Hey". A music video for this song was later released in February 2018. In the same year, Boz became the face of Cornetto's 2018 commercials in Turkey, and released the single "Geç Olmadan" in May 2018 as the annual song for the company.
In 2019, Boz starred in the comedy romantic movie Öldür Beni Sevgilim, opposite Seda Bakan. The movie, which was released on 1 March 2019, was not commercially successful, and garnered 9.7 million, becoming the tenth most watched movie of 2019 in Turkey as of June 2019. A music video for the main song from the movie's soundtrack was released in February 2019. In July 2019, Boz's sixth single, "Aşk Bu", was released by DMC. The song, which was written by Fikri Karayel and arranged by Ozan Çolakoğlu, was released together with a music video that was recorded in Şile. Mayk Şişman from Milliyet described the single in his review as "one of the most remarkable songs of the year, especially with its post-chorus melody."
On 14 February 2020, Boz's new single "Can Kenarım" was released by DMC. Bilal Sonses wrote the song's lyrics while Mustafa Ceceli served as its arranger. Its music video was directed by Gülşen Aybaba.

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. His appearance and style in his first songs were compared to that of Tarkan. Boz, who had been a backing vocalist for Tarkan early in his career, expressed his discomfort with the comparisons between Tarkan and himself. He gained prominence with his dance songs in Maximum and Şans, and later included low 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 was in a "good orientation" as he was writing his songs with 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 seven 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 winning 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-like behavior and jokes, he's one of the most friendly persons among the judges." At 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. He has also appeared in numerous commercials for various companies. In 2012, he took part in an advertisement, and following the results of a contest held within a group of selected people, he chose the winners to appear alongside him in the music video for "Soyadımsın".

Discography

Studio albums

Television

Awards and nominations

YearAwardsCategoryNominee/workResultRef
2007Golden Butterfly AwardsBest Newcomer SoloistMurat Boz
2007İstanbul FM Golden AwardsBest Newcomer Male ArtistMurat Boz
2007Kral TV Video Music AwardsBest Newcomer Male ArtistMurat Boz
20094th Jetix Child AwardsMost Favorite Male SingerMurat Boz
2009İstanbul FM Golden AwardsBest Album of a Male SingerŞans
2010Balkan Music AwardsBest Male Artist of BalkansMurat Boz
2010Balkan Music AwardsBest Song of Balkans "Sallana Sallana"
2010Pal FM Music AwardsBest Male ArtistMurat Boz
20114th Aslan Max AwardsMost Favorite Male SingerMurat Boz
2011Kral Music AwardsBest Duet"İki Medeni İnsan"
2011Radio Boğaziçi Music AwardsBest Male ArtistMurat Boz
2012Golden Butterfly AwardsBest Turk Pop Music Male SoloistMurat Boz
2012Turkey Elle Style AwardsMale Music Star of the YearMurat Boz
2012EN AwardsBest Male Pop ArtistMurat Boz
2012Gerçek Pop AwardsBest Male ArtistMurat Boz
2012Gerçek Pop AwardsBest Single"Geri Dönüş Olsa"
2012Kral Music AwardsBest Male ArtistMurat Boz
2012OMÜ Media AwardsBest Male SingerMurat Boz
2012Galatasaray University AwardsBest Male Pop SingerMurat Boz
2012Siyaset Magazine AwardsAlbum of the YearAşklarım Büyük Benden
2012Siyaset Magazine AwardsSong of the Year"Aşklarım Büyük Benden"
2012Siyaset Magazine AwardsTurk Pop Music Male Artist of the YearMurat Boz
2012MGD 18th Golden Lens AwardsMale Commentator of the YearMurat Boz
2012World Consumer Academy AwardsBest Male Pop ArtistMurat Boz
2012Most Special Awards of the YearMost Special AlbumAşklarım Büyük Benden
2013Turkey Music AwardsBest Male ArtistMurat Boz
2013Pal FM Music AwardsBest Male ArtistMurat Boz
20131st European University of Lefke AwardsBest Male VocalistMurat Boz
2013Haliç University 2013 Bests AwardsBest Male Pop Artist of the YearMurat Boz
2014Ege University 3. Media AwardsBest Male ArtistMurat Boz
201441st Magnum Golden Butterfly AwardsBest Turk Pop Music Male SoloistMurat Boz
2015Ege University 4th Media AwardsBest Male ArtistMurat Boz
2015Ege University 4th Media AwardsBest Cover"Elmanın Yarısı"
2015Galatasaray University AwardsBest Male Pop SingerMurat Boz
20156th İMK Social Media AwardsBest Male SingerMurat Boz
201611th Makinistanbul Media, Art and Sport AwardsBest Male Artist of the YearMurat Boz
2016Istanbul Aydın University 12th Communication AwardsBest Movie Actor of the YearMurat Boz
2016DAF BAMA Music AwardsTurk Pop Music Best Male ArtistMurat Boz
201643rd Golden Butterfly AwardsBest Turk Pop Music Male SoloistMurat Boz
20167th İMK Social Media AwardsBest Male SingerMurat Boz
20171st Musiconair AwardsBest Pop Music Male ArtistMurat Boz
201724th İTÜ EMÖS Achievement AwardsMost Successful Album of the YearJanti
20171st Turkey Child AwardsBest Song"Adını Bilen Yazsın"