Gülşen Çolakoğlu (born 29 May 1976) is a Turkish singer-songwriter. Born and raised in Istanbul, she graduated from Şehremini High School. After finishing high school, Gülşen enrolled in Istanbul Technical University and at the same time began performing at bars and later left the university. In 1995, while performing at a bar, she was discovered by a composer and contracted with Raks Müzik for her first studio album.

Gülşen’s debut album, Be Adam, was released in 1996, which made her known in the music industry, but she preferred to take a break from her professional career and instead focused on her marital life. In 2004, her fourth studio album Of… Of… became a hit in Turkey and a single with the same name as the album earned her both a Golden Butterfly Award and a Turkey Music Award. The Mü-Yap certified album Yurtta Aşk Cihanda Aşk (2006) and her subsequent albums had successful sales, and Beni Durdursan mı? (2013) became Turkey’s best-selling album of the year, followed by Bangır Bangır (2015), which became the second best-selling album of 2015. The singles “Yurtta Aşk Cihanda Aşk”, “Bi’ An Gel”, “Yeni Biri”, “Sözde Ayrılık”, “Yatcaz Kalkcaz Ordayım”, “Kardan Adam”, “İltimas”, “Bangır Bangır” and “Bir İhtimal Biliyorum” all became number-one hits on Türkçe Top 20.

Gülşen, who has received positive reception from music critics and alongside her singing career is a prominent figure as a songwriter, started singing her own songs, especially after the early years of her career, and has produced many hit songs for her colleagues as well. In 2015, she became the Turkish singer with the most number of viewers on YouTube and a year later she became the first Turkish singer to have a music video watched over 200 million times on the platform. Throughout her career, she has won numerous awards, including six Golden Butterfly Awards and nine Kral Turkey Music Awards.

Gülşen Bayraktar was born on 29 May 1976 in Fatih, Istanbul, to a family that originated from Ordu. She is her parents’ third and last child. Her father, Arslan Bayraktar, was a mechanical engineer, while her mother, Nimet Bayraktar, was a housewife. She spent her childhood and youth in Çapa and together with her family visited Ordu Province several times a year, where they owned nut gardens. A fan of Far East martial arts, Gülşen began to learn karate in high school and later received her black belt. She was forced to use the martial art at the age 17 while she and her friend were harassed in the street and has said that similar occasions have happened several times in her daily life. After finishing her studies at Şehremini Anadolu High School, she began studying Turkish classical music at the Istanbul Technical University. Simultaneously, she began performing at night clubs and bars in Istanbul but as she couldn’t handle both her studies and her job, she left the university after the first year. She subsequently got Turkish folk music lessons, and worked as a backing vocalist for Çelik and Bendeniz for three months. In 1995, she was discovered by producer Serap Turgay while performing at a bar in Bakırköy. After being introduced to Turgay’s husband Özkan Turgay, Gülşen received an offer to make her first album. She finally signed a contract with Raks Müzik to produce four albums.

After signing a contract with Raks Müzik, Gülşen began working on her first album in the second half of 1995. Meanwhile, at the request of the production company, she played in a music video for Tulga’s single “Ay Bu Kız Beni Öldürecek”. Many of the songs in her first album Be Adam (Oh Man!) were written and composed by Serap and Özkan Turgay. It was released in July 1996 and featured the single “Gel Çarem”. Following the release of the album, Milliyet wrote that Gülşen had made an ambitious start in her career. After releasing the music video for “Gel Çarem”, she recorded a music video for a single with the same title as her album, “Be Adam”. Gülşen, who was shown wearing a pajama in the music video, became known as the “pajama girl” in the Turkish media. Subsequently, a third and a fourth music video were released for “Saz mı Caz mı?” and “Son Sözüm”. The album earned Gülşen a nomination in the Best Newcomer Female Artist category at the 3rd Kral TV Video Music Awards. A few months after the release of Be Adam, she married the nightclub operator Murat Varol. Following her marriage, she decided to put aside her career for a while.

In 1998, she signed a new contract with Prestij Müzik, which in return caused a dispute between her new and old producers. Gülşen was sued by Serap Turgay, who stated that Gülşen had agreed to work with Raks Müzik for another two years, while Mahsun Kırmızıgül from Prestij Müzik refused the accusations by saying that they had signed a contract with Gülşen after negotiations with the previous company had failed. As a result, the singer’s second album Erkeksen (If You’re A Man) was produced by Prestij Müzik and released in December 1998. Gülşen later stated that “[Following Be Adam] I made another album so that I could enjoy it, I went out on the scene several times in my husband’s places.” She wrote the lyrics for the singles “Yiğidim”, “Delisin” and “Gözü Karalım”, and subsequently separate music videos were released for each of them.

In the final months of 2000, Gülşen divorced her husband Murat Varol due to irreconcilable differences. Following their divorce, she refused the allegations of violence by her ex-husband, saying in a report: “He didn’t beat me, I beat him because I have a black belt in karate.” Her third studio album Şimdi (Now), which was also released by Prestij Müzik in November 2001, featured the leading single “İhanet” (Betrayal) written by Gülşen. It was about the couple’s extramarital affairs during their marriage. The album’s production company was affected during the 2001 Turkish economic crisis, and as a result, they produced one music video only for the song “İhanet”.