Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia, Khorasan, and the Caucasus, as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey and Western Europe. The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million.
The Kurdish languages constitute a dialect continuum, belonging to the Iranian language family, spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. The three Kurdish languages are Northern Kurdish, Central Kurdish, and Southern Kurdish.
Jalal Talabani was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the sixth president of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, as well as the president of the Governing Council of Iraq. He was the first non-Arab president of Iraq. He is known as Mam Jalal amongst the Kurds.
Barham Salih is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who is the 8th president of Iraq.
Şivan Perwer is a Kurdish poet, writer, musical teacher, singer, and performer on the Tembûr. Perwer fled Turkey in 1976 due to the Kurdish nationalism and political tones of his music and lived for 37 years in continuous exile until his return to Diyarbakir on November 16, 2013. He still lives in exile to this day. Perwer also holds several honorary doctorates in music.
Kurdish culture is a group of distinctive cultural traits practiced by Kurdish people. The Kurdish culture is a legacy from ancient peoples who shaped modern Kurds and their society.
Ahmet Kaya was a folk singer of mixed Kurdish-Turkish origin. He released several popular records often sympathetic with the left wing political movement. He was granted the Musician of the Year Award in February 1999 during a controversial Award ceremony at which after he declared to want to record a song in Kurdish, he was persecuted by the Turkish nationalist celebrities and authorities. Following, Kaya left Turkey into Exile in France where he shortly after died of a heart attack.
Ciwan Haco is a Kurdish singer. He was born in Tirbespî near Qamişlo in Syria. His grandfather was originally from Mardin, Turkey. After finishing high school, he left for Germany in order to continue his studies. He studied musicology at the Ruhr University Bochum. He is now residing in Sweden.
Zakaria Abdulla is a Kurdish musician. He is best known for his pop music, which combines Kurdish melodies with various popular regional music styles.
Adnan Karim is a prominent Kurdish singer, known for his song adaptations of classical Kurdish poems. He is also a painter.
Dalshad Said is a contemporary Kurdish musician.
Aram Tigran or Aramê Dîkran, born Aram Melikyan, was a contemporary Armenian singer who sang primarily in Kurdish. Among Assyrians in Qamishli he was known as Aram Dikran.
Chopy Shakir Fatah is a contemporary Kurdish singer. She was born in Kirkuk, Iraq.
Omar Souleyman is a Syrian singer and farmer from the village of Tell Tamer near the city of Ra's al-'Ayn on the Syria–Turkey border. He started his career as a part-time wedding singer in his native al-Hasakah Governorate, and while he is a Sunni Arab, he emphasises the influence its culturally diverse milieu has had on his style: "My music is from the community I come from – the Kurdish, the Ashuri, the Arabic, they're all in this community. Even Turkish because it's so near, it's just across the border."
Hamza Namira is an Egyptian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has released three albums from the production of Awakening Records: Dream With Me, Insan, Esmaani; and a couple of albums from Namira production, his own foundation: Hateer Min Tany and Mawlood Sanat 80. Besides singing, for which he is mostly known, he has also worked in musical composition and arrangement. Namira composed some of his own work, like the album heads Esmaani and Insan, along with some collaborations with other artists, like Maher Zain's song Ya Nabi Salam Alayka. He also contributed to arranging the cartoony remake Egyptian Jingle Bells, which was the first shaabi work in his repertoire, later followed by Esta3izo in his fourth studio album.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir Ez-Zor. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 in the context of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian Civil War, in which its official military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has taken part.
Mihemed Şêxmûs Salih better known as Mihemed Şêxo, was one of the most important Kurdish folk singers. With his sentimental, traditional and often political lyrics he created great Kurdish music like few before him. His work is still well-known and listened to today.
AANES–Syria relations concern the military and political relations between the Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), a de facto autonomous multi-ethnic region in northern and eastern Syria. The Syrian government does not officially recognise the autonomy of the AANES, and advocates a centralist approach to the governance of Syria. The NES seeks the federalisation of Syria. For most of the Syrian civil war, there has been a non-aggression pact between the military of Syria and the Syrian Democratic Forces, with occasional confrontations and some cooperation against Islamist groups, in particular against the Turkish Armed Forces and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army.
Jan Pêt Khorto is a Syrian Kurdish poet, writer, and public speaker. His poetry is categorised as having political orientation and has been characterized as exile literature.
Ibrahim biro, head of the Yekiti Kurdistan Party - Syria, from March 2013 to late December 2018. Born in the city of Amouda July 7, 1965 of the Syrian province of Hasakah. He received his high school diploma from the city's high school and continued his studies at the Intermediate Institute of Railways in Aleppo in 1985. To work as a civil servant at the Syrian Railways Corporation one year after graduating.
