Mihemed Arif Cizrawî

Mihemed Arif Cizrawî (1912-1986), from Cizîra Botan, was one of the golden voices of the Kurdish radio era. Broadcasting brought his classical Kurmancî repertoire: love songs, laments and the Botan tradition, into homes across all parts of Kurdistan at a time when little else crossed those borders. Together with his contemporaries he defined the mid-century canon; countless later singers learned their repertoire from his broadcasts. His name still stands for a certain ideal of the classical Kurdish voice: powerful, precise, unhurried.