Emilija “Emina” Jahović (born 15 January 1982), is a Serbian-Turkish singer-songwriter, actress, and businesswoman of Bosniak origin. Born and raised in Novi Pazar, she made her recording debut in 2002 and has released five studio albums: Tačka (2002), Radije ranije (2005), Vila (2009), Metamorfoza (2014) and Dalje (2016). Outside her singing career, Jahović starred as Lale Taşkıran Ilgaz in the television series Lale Devri, between 2010 and 2014. She also served as a judge on the singing competitions X Factor Adria (2013) and Rising Star Türkiye (2016).

Jahović was married to singer Mustafa Sandal with whom she has two sons.Emina Jahović was born on 15 January 1982 in Novi Pazar to a Muslim Bosniak family. Her mother Senija worked as a pediatrician and her father Nusret was a cardiologist. She has two older siblings, including NBA player Mirsad Türkcan. Emina lost her father at the age of thirteen. She started attending music school during middle school and took theatre lessons in high school. Jahović eventually received a bachelor’s degree in management from the Braća Karić University in Belgrade.

She began her career by competing at regional music festivals and won at the youth festival Zlatna staza in Montenegro with “Samo ti, moja muziko” (“Only You, My Music”). Jahović then rose to prominence upon her debut album Tačka (“Enough”) in 2002, which was released under Dino Merlin’s record label. Jahović in 2004 joined the pop-rock band Hari Mata Hari on their tour across Bosnia and Herzegovina and North America, performing for Yugoslav diaspora. Her sophomore album, Radije ranije (“Rather Sooner”), was released through City Records in 2005. It saw significant success with hit songs such as “Da l’ ona zna” (“Does She Know”). Same year she was also declared the songwriter of the year at the Pjesma Mediterana festival in Budva.

In 2007, Jahović collaborated with Serbian duo Flamingosi on “La Gitana” (“The Gypsy Woman”). The single’s accompanying music video was awarded at the Sunčane Skale festival in Montenegro. The following year, she released her first single in English, titled “Exhale”,[11] which was completely produced and recorded in New York City under the production wing of Bojan Dugić (aka Bojan “Genius” Dugic), the Recording Academy’s Grammy Awards voting member who worked with such best selling artists as Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Jay-Z, and Jennifer Lopez. The maxi single contained remix tracks by DJs, including Elvir Gazić and Levent Gündüz. The tracks “Push It” and “Push It (Remix)” featured Cory Gunz, an American rapper.

On 19 April 2008, the accompanying video for “Exhale” premiered on the MTV Adria show Top 20 which counts down the biggest videos in the localized version of the music and entertainment channel MTV Europe. Emir Khalilzadeh directed the video. Khalilzadeh also directed the music video for Emina’s 2009 song “Pile moje” (“My Dear”), which was shot in historical places such as Istanbul High School.

In December 2008, she released her single “Još ti se nadam” (“I’m Still Hoping for You”), a duet with the Serbian singer Saša Kovačević. The song was first presented at the Serbian Radio Festival in Vrnjačka Banja. Jahović said that she had written the lyrics for “Još ti se nadam” after she had broken up with Mustafa Sandal for a short time in 2006. However, its music was credited to the influential Greek recording artist Michalis Hatzigiannis. The single was re-released later on in Emina’s 2009 album. The music video for the song was shot on several different locations in Serbia and was considered to be one of the most expensive music videos in Serbian music history.

In 2009, as a special guest star, she performed the song “Pile moje” at Sunčane Skale. Additionally, “Rođeni sa greškom” (“Born With a Mistake”), which is a pop song performed by singers Ana Bebić, Milica Majstorović, and Danijel Pavlović, was written by Jahović in Istanbul, in the studio of her pop star husband Mustafa Sandal who is also a music producer.

On 21 May 2009, Jahović’s third studio album Vila (“Fairy”) was released through PGP RTS. She dedicated this album to her late grandfather, Adam. The album was recorded in two years and included songs written and composed by Jahović, except “Ne zaboravi” (“Don’t Forget”), a song by Aleksandra Milutinović who also worked on Emina’s previous albums, and “Zver” (“Beast”), which was co-written and co-produced by Dino Merlin. The track “Ne zaboravi” featured a back-up vocal by the famous Turkish pop singer İzel. The album also featured a duet with Dino Merlin, “Med” (“Honey”), which is known as the only song Merlin ever sang that he had not written by himself. It is also mentioned by Jahović that the reason why she chose the name Vila for the album is because she thought the title track was one of the best songs she had ever written and that was why she wanted people to pay attention to it.