Ahmet Kaya was a folk singer from Malatya, Turkey. Born in 1957 to a Kurdish father and a Turkish mother, Ahmet Kaya first encountered music at the age of six, though he worked as a taxi driver in Istanbul until he released his first album, Ağlama Bebeğim in 1985.

His fame continued to rise throughout the late 80s and the 1990s, and by 1994 when he released his chart topper album, Şarkılarım Dağlara, he had already released 13 albums previously.

On 10th of February, 1999 Ahmet Kaya announced during the televised annual music awards ceremony, Show TV, that he intended to produce music in his native language, being of Kurdish background. He also announced that he had recorded a song in Kurdish (Karwan, which was released on the Hoşçakalın Gözüm album in 2001) and that he intended to produce a music video to accompany it.

This was followed by massive opposition from Turkish people and celebrities attending the event; Singers such as Serdar Ortaç sang a song with altered lyrics to boost nationalist feelings.

This incident led to a prosecution case which led to Ahmet Kaya having to leave Turkey. In March 2000 he was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison on the charge of spreading separatist propaganda, however this mass media allegation showing Kaya in front of a poster was proven to be forged.

Ahmet Kaya died later that year in Paris from a heart attack in November, 2000, at the age of 43. He is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.