Kâzım Koyuncu - Topic

Kâzım Koyuncu was a Turkish singer-songwriter and activist of Laz origin. He was born in a village called Yeşilköy, Hopa/Artvin. Koyuncu recorded songs in a number of languages spoken along the northeastern Black Sea coast of Turkey, as well as the language of Laz. He was the founder and singer of Zuğaşi Berepe, a folk rock group founded in 1993. Following the group's break-up in 2000, Koyuncu went on to record two solo albums, Viya! in 2001 and Hayde in 2004, which proved to be popular across Turkey and also in Georgia. He died during treatment for testicular cancer in 2005. Although strongly denied by Health Minister Recep Akdağ, it is popularly thought that the Chernobyl disaster was the cause of Koyuncu's cancer, a s...