Türkiye bids farewell to Özkan Uğur

ISTANBUL

The funeral program of Türkiye’s prominent musician Özkan Uğur, a member of one of the best-known Turkish pop music bands, MFÖ, who lost his life on July 8 after a decade-long fight with cancer, has been announced.

A ceremony will be held tomorrow at the Atatürk Culture Center (AKM) in Istanbul at 11 a.m. After the noon prayer in Taksim Mosque, Uğur will be buried in Karacaahmet Cemetery.

Uğur had been receiving treatment in the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Istanbul for a while due to lymphoma cancer after it recurred three times. He died on July 8 at the age of 69.

"We lost our beloved Özkan Uğur. We will not forget this voice that came from the heart," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced his death on Twitter.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also issued a statement on Uğur's death, extending condolences to his loved ones, fans and fellow artists.

"I wish Allah's mercy on Özkan Uğur, the beloved voice and cinema artist of our country, winner of the Presidential Culture and Art Grand Award in the field of music," Erdoğan said.

Born in 1953, Uğur was a member of the Turkish pop and rock trio MFÖ along with bandmates Mazhar Alanson and Fuat Güner.

Before the formation of MFÖ in 1980, Uğur was a founding member of the Anatolian rock band Kurtalan Ekspres in 1972.

In 1974, Uğur played in one of the albums of the Alanson and Güner duo. He returned to Kurtalan Ekspres in 1976, but later formed Grup Karma in 1978.

In 1980, he returned to working with Alanson and Güner and formed the band Mazhar Fuat Özkan, which was later shortened to MFÖ. The band released their first album in 1984. The band had its heydays in the 1980s, and it also represented Türkiye in the Eurovision Song Contest twice; in 1985 with "Didai didai dai," which ranked 14th, and in 1988 with "Sufi," which ranked 15th.

In 2017, the band released their first album in five years. Uğur was the only member of the band to not have released a solo album while the others maintained their music career with solo albums.

Besides his music career, he also played roles in several theater plays, movies and TV series. Among them, the best ones were Yavuz Turgul's "The Bandit" (Eşkıya) and Cem Yilmaz's "G.O.R.A.," "A.R.O.G.," “Arif V 216” and "Mild West” (Yahşi Batı).

In 2013, Uğur was diagnosed with lymphoma and in July 2020, he defeated cancer for a second time. He announced in April 2022 that he was diagnosed with cancer for a third time, which was successfully treated again, but damaged his organs.

In late June 2023, it was announced that Uğur was intubated and placed in an intensive care unit.

He was married to dancing instructor Aysun Aslan since 1989 and has a son.