Ebru Gündeş (, born 12 October 1974) is a Turkish pop-folk and arabesque singer, actress, and television personality. Early life Ebru Gündeş was born in Istanbul. She attended primary school in Ankara, but she was forced to discontinue her education due to financial difficulty. She comes from a prominent religious Sunni Muslim family known for its military leaders. The quality of her voice was discovered at an early age when one of her relatives took her to Neşe Demirkat, a partner in Raks Neşe Müzik, which is a record label in Turkey. Demirkat was impressed with her voice and introduced her to music producers Koral Sarıtaş and Selçuk Tekay. Career Ebru Gündeş sings the kind of desperately tragic Arabesque love songs that are the core of Turkish pop music. Her debut album, Tanrı Misafiri, was released in 1992. It proved to be a massive success, selling 1,250,000 copies nationwide. At this stage, she was regarded as a very sweet and innocent-looking girl, slim, dressed in white and with an attractive habit of raising one eyebrow. She was on billboards all over Istanbul. Her subsequent albums have been hugely successful. Gündeş released her fifth studio album Sen Allah'ın Bir Lütfusun in 1998. On 5 April 1998, the album ranked among the top 10 on MÜ-YAP's list of 50 best-selling albums, and on 25 April and 2 May it rose to the second position on the list of pop albums sold by Megavizyon and Mephisto music markets. For the album's first music video, Gündeş was accompanied by the Nigerian footballer and Fenerbahçe S.K. defender Uche Okechukwu. She has had serious health problems. She suffered from a cerebral haemorrhage in December 1999, while recording Dön Ne Olur. After two operations, Ebru eventually returned to full health. Dön Ne Olur was one of the best-selling albums of all time in Turkey. In November 2001, she released the album Ahdım Olsun. It was followed by Şahane (2003), Bize de Bu Yakışır (2004), Kaçak (2006) and Evet (2008). Ebru Gündeş then released another album, Beyaz ("White"). The album, like most albums released that year, was unsuccessful, selling just over 100,000 throughout the year. In 2012, she released the album 13.5, which consisted only of covers of old popular songs. The album reached average sales in the country. However, the general perception of music critics had been one of disappointment, as the album consisted solely of covers