Can Bonomo

A radio-booth apprenticeship

Can Bonomo was born in İzmir on 16 May 1987 to a Sephardic Jewish family, a background that surfaces in his records as a set of melodic habits rather than as declared subject matter. He moved to Istanbul to study television and cinema at Istanbul Bilgi University, and by the age of seventeen was already working in the city as a vocal productionist — the job of cutting and layering voices for other people's broadcasts.

That work went out on air long before his own name did. It appeared on Number 1 FM, Radio101 and Radio Class, and on MTV and Number One TV. He also wrote songs for other singers before he recorded as one himself, and the craft side of that period has stayed visible in his albums: the arrangements are assembled by somebody who spent years learning how a track has to behave once it leaves the room.

Baku, 2012, and the five albums after it

His debut album Meczup appeared in 2011 and raised his profile fast enough that in January 2012 he was internally selected to represent Turkey at the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. "Love Me Back" finished seventh in the final on 26 May 2012.

Turkey has not entered the contest since, which leaves Bonomo as its most recent representative — a line in every biography written about him for the fourteen years since, and one that has little bearing on the music he actually went on to make. Aşktan Ve Gariplikten followed later in 2012, then Bulunmam Gerek in 2014, Kâinat Sustu in 2017 and Ruhum Bela in 2019, a roughly three-year cadence he kept to until the gap that preceded his sixth record.

Alongside the music there has been a steady run of screen work: the series +18 in 2011, Yalan Dünya in 2014, Güldür Güldür in 2015, Aile İşi in 2016 and Jet Sosyete in 2019, plus a cameo in the 2017 film Housewife. He married the actress Öykü Karayel in 2018; they have one son.

Kara Konular, and the writing

Kara Konular, released on 16 February 2024, is the sixth studio album and the centre of his catalogue as it stands. It runs to twelve songs, all words and music by Bonomo, recorded and mastered at The FatLab by Ali Rıza Şahenk and produced across three studios by Can Saban, Kaan Arslan and Sabi Saltiel. The title track led the release. The guest list is unusually long for a Turkish pop-rock record and draws in both singers and actors: Mabel Matiz, Gökhan Özoğuz, Melike Şahin, Nova Norda, Bengi Apak, Sarp Apak, Engin Öztürk, Melikşah Altuntaş and Serkan Keskin.

Bonomo has called it the album he worked hardest on, describing a three-year journey from the point he began writing the material. The five-year wait between Ruhum Bela and Kara Konular is the longest of his career so far, and the record arrived carrying that weight.

The other half of the output is printed. He has published four poetry collections — Delirmek Belirmektir in 2013, Şu Sevdalar Tevatürü in 2016, Parya Koma in 2018, and Mümkansız Şeyler, which Holden Kitap issued in March 2026 at 104 pages. The fourth book was titled by his son, then four and a half, and is dedicated to him; its material deals with childhood injury, reckoning with the past, fatherhood and death, and it deliberately refuses the support of melody. A debut novel, Ateşli Silahlar ve Bilardo, appeared in December 2024. He also writes for the magazines OT, Kafa, Masa, Sadece Şiir and Underground Poetix.

Asked in March 2026 how the writing works, he dismissed the premise of waiting for a mood: there is no such thing as inspiration, he said, and he writes daily regardless. He described poetry as something that speaks for other people as well as the writer, and treats songwriting and poetry as separate disciplines rather than two uses of the same material. In the same conversation he said a second novel was about half finished and had been set aside while he wrote a play.

Three singles and a court file: the state of 2026

Rather than hold material back for an album launch, Bonomo has released 2026 one song at a time. "Bir Başına" came out across digital platforms on 17 April, written and composed by him, with production, mixing and mastering by Emre Malikler, and built on modern indie-rock textures. He framed it as a more personal turn: growing older, he said, had given him the nerve to look at places he had been afraid to face, and writing the song had done him good. "Hata" followed on 5 June, issued through Mümkün İşler.

"Sen Gül Diye" arrived on 18 September 2026 — words and music by Bonomo, arranged by Can Saban, recorded at Salü, the team's new studio, with a sleeve by Korgün Akgün. He described it as reminiscent of his third and fourth albums and distinct from the rest of what he is currently making, with lyrics he conceded were dark but which carry a twisted sort of hope inside them. A studio album is in progress in the new room; no title or date has been announced.

Not all of the recent news is musical. On 5 October 2026 Turkish press reported that an indictment had been filed against a 33-year-old man, named as Mehmet B., over threatening messages sent to Bonomo. Prosecutors are seeking three years on charges of threatening and of disturbing a person's peace. The messages, which included claims that the sender could find and come to Bonomo's home, appear to have stemmed from remarks the singer made on a social-media programme in 2021 that the man took to refer to his own divorce. Attempts at reconciliation failed and the Istanbul chief public prosecutor's office opened the investigation that led to the charge.

The set as it stands

The touring is domestic and relentless rather than expansive. Songkick logs thirteen 2026 dates against seventeen in 2025 and thirteen in 2024, with 54 shows in Istanbul across his career, 31 in Ankara and 15 in İzmir, and 24,481 users tracking him for alerts. The 2026 run opened at Paribu Art on 24 January, then Jolly Joker Ankara on 6 March, JJ Arena Ataşehir on 27 March, the Midterm Camp Fest at Life Park on 25 April, the Tarihi Havagazı Fabrikası in İzmir on 17 May, IF Performance Hall Beşiktaş on 20 June, Oran Açık Hava Sahnesi in Ankara on 26 June, Bilkent Odeon on 3 July and Paribu Vadi Açıkhava on 5 September. Six dates remain listed, including Oktoberfest in Istanbul on 10 October, JJ Arena Ataşehir on 17 October at 21:00 and Jolly Joker Ankara on 7 November. Billings regularly pair him with Gazapizm, Dedublüman and Emre Fel.

The shape of the show is legible from the logged setlists. At BtcTurk Vadi Açıkhava on 2 August 2025 the billed window ran from 21:30 to 23:45 and the set opened "Dağ", "Kara Konular", "Yine Karşılaşırsak" and "Rüyamda Buluttum" before moving through "Kalbi Hepten Kırıklara", "Delinin Düşü", "Tarzım Değil", "Aşk Eski Bir Yalan", "Kanadım Aşktan", "Dem", "Güneş" and "Islak". Compared with his İzmir Arena set of 23 August 2023 — "Tastamam", "Sustum", "Ağla Şimdi Sonsuza Kadar", "Ali Baba", "Kal Bugün", "Rüyamda Buluttum", "Esmer", "Güneş", "Dağ", "Gazapistan", "Dem", "Olduramadım" — the 2024 album has taken over the front half while "Dem", "Güneş" and "Rüyamda Buluttum" hold their places as fixtures.

Venue copy for the current dates leans on his between-song talk and the Istanbul lineage he claims for himself, naming Nazım Hikmet and Attila İlhan as reference points and describing a high-tempo set that does not let the rhythm drop. That is promoters' language rather than criticism, and independent reviews of the 2026 shows are thin; what is documented is the running time, the repertoire and the fact that the rooms keep getting booked.