Cem Belevi

İzmir, a piano at seven, and five years of the wrong degree

Cem Belevi was born in İzmir on 4 June 1987 to a painter mother and a pianist father, and began piano lessons at seven. At thirteen he found the guitar, which he has since called the instrument he expresses himself best with. At eighteen he left for England and stayed five years: six months of language study in Cambridge, a year of economics at David Game College in London, then three years reading international business at Brunel University. The part that mattered ran in parallel to the degree — voice lessons, plus blues and jazz at the London School of Contemporary Music.

He finished at Brunel, took a job at a London firm and left it fairly quickly. In 2011 he returned to Turkey and started work on an album. Traces of the English years are still audible in his own writing, which sits closer to Anglo-American pop than to arabesk — which makes the repertoire he has built his reputation on since all the more unlikely, being older and considerably more local than anything on his syllabus.

Bilmezsin, and the duet that did the work

His debut album, Bilmezsin, was entirely self-written: every lyric, every melody. The lead single, 'Günaydın Sevgilim', got a video and a modest promotional run and little else. What carried him further was a duet, 'Kim Ne Derse Desin', recorded with Ayshe, which travelled well beyond anything he had put out alone and earned a Turkey Music Awards nomination. A run of singles followed — 'Sevemez Kimse Seni', 'Sor', 'Aç Kollarını' — spread across labels including DMC and Taş Plak.

Acting ran alongside the records rather than after them. He appeared in İnadına Aşk on FOX across 2015 and 2016 as Deniz Aras, and in Menajerimi Ara in 2021 as a character called Cem. He has not closed the door on it: in March 2026 he said he expected to be back on screen in the summer with a romantic comedy, while conceding that the gazino shows take serious time and energy. Speaking on 8 May 2026 he said offers from both broadcasters and digital platforms keep arriving and keep running into the same scheduling problem.

Cemiyet Gazinosu: a 1970s room he never set foot in

The project that reshaped his working life is a pun. Cemiyet Gazinosu folds his own first name into the Turkish for a society gazino — the supper-club format of singer, orchestra, dancers and dinner tables that dominated Turkish night-time entertainment before it faded. It grew out of the nostalgia that followed the series Kulüp, whose gazino singer Selim Songür sent a great many Turkish viewers back towards a kind of venue most of them had never been inside. Belevi, born in 1987, had not either; he says the 1970s reached him through films, and that during the pandemic he began arranging his own compositions with a period sound before deciding to stage them as a full gazino bill.

The first song out of the project was 'Ondan Vazgeçemem Ben', written and composed by Belevi and arranged by Emirhan Cengiz, its video cast partly from Turkish radio — Cem Arslan, Duygu Atakan and Sarışeker Sema among them. Others have appeared at intervals since. On stage the repertoire reaches from the 1970s to the present and crosses languages inside a single set, with Turkish, English and Greek songs and material associated with Zeki Müren, Müslüm Gürses, Ümit Besen and Ferdi Özbeğen.

He is unusually blunt about which half of his career satisfies him. In an interview published on 24 March 2026, after playing the Merit Lefkoşa in northern Cyprus over the Ramadan holiday, he said he had found himself in the nostalgic songs, that he loves the 1970s, and that his professional satisfaction comes from the gazino concerts — while continuing to make pop because a committed audience wants it. On 8 May 2026 he described the concept as very special to him and said the response had been strongly positive.

2026: two singles, a march for Galatasaray, a diary that does not stop

The recent releases are pop rather than gazino. 'Mucize', announced on 20 December 2025, is his own words and music, with a video directed by Damla Latin, and turns on a hopeless heart finding its way back through love rather than through any grand gesture. 'Sevme Diyor' followed on 24 July 2026 — Latin pop, again written and composed by Belevi, arranged by Mert Kemancı and released through Zeyn Music, its video shot on a beach. He framed it as a song for people who cannot talk their own hearts out of anything.

Other 2026 work has been collaborative. He has been preparing a re-reading of 'Ne Zaman', coordinating with Ahmet Şeker and Serdar Ortaç. Football has crept in as well: on the 8 May broadcast of 90'lar Futbol Smart, carried by D-Smart and DreamTürk, he mentioned writing a composition for Victor Osimhen and contributing to Galatasaray march projects.

The diary, though, has been the real story of the year. He played Çapa Pera in Istanbul on 24 January 2026, the Merit Lefkoşa over the Ramadan holiday, Jolly Joker Atakent Tema in Istanbul on 16 May, Pera Kemer Kabaret in Antalya on 15 August and The Miyo's in Fethiye on 27 September. One booking came straight off a football terrace: on 2 March 2026 the Alanya restaurateur Ali Cantez announced he had arranged a return Cemiyet Gazinosu night with Belevi after meeting him in the stands at a Corendon Alanyaspor match in Istanbul. Two dates are on sale as of mid-October 2026 — Muamma Ataşehir in Istanbul on 23 October, with a 22:30 start, and the Balçova Termal Otel in İzmir on 30 October.

The shape of the night

A published running order for a Cemiyet Gazinosu dinner staging at the Divan Ankara on 25 October 2025 shows how deliberately the evening is built. Doors at 20:30. A DJ playing 1970s and 80s records from 21:00 as dinner goes out. A dance number in period costume at 21:30. Belevi's gazino set at 22:00. A pop finale from 23:30. A DJ after-party until half past midnight. Pricing was organised around the table rather than the sightlines: 8,000 lira for VIP seating, 6,000 and 5,000 for the first two categories with dinner, and 3,000 for a seat with snacks and drinks only.

A review of the Çapa Pera night on 24 January 2026 recorded Belevi playing several instruments live, dance routines that included Michael Jackson-styled zombie choreography, surprise turns before his own set, and heavy attendance with sustained applause at the close. What the write-ups keep returning to is the sequencing — Zeki Müren next to a Greek number next to one of his own pop singles, performed in period costume and entirely without irony.

Where this leaves him

Belevi's standing in October 2026 is precise rather than large. The venues in his diary are hotel ballrooms, kabaret rooms and supper clubs with seated covers, not arenas, and the gazino bill is what reliably fills them; the pop singles keep a separate, younger audience in contact with him between those nights. It is a working division of labour that few Turkish pop singers of his generation have bothered to build, and on his own account it is the older half he would not give up.