Lepa Brena

Fahreta Živojinović (Jahić; Фахрета Живојиновић, Јахић; born 20 October 1960), known by her stage name Lepa Brena (Лепа Брена), is a Yugoslav singer, actress, and businesswoman.

With around 25 million sold records, she is regarded as the commercially most successful recording artist from the former Yugoslavia.

Lepa Brena grew up in Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but has lived in Belgrade, Serbia since 1980, where she started her career.

Lepa Brena is considered to be a symbol of the former Yugoslavia, due to the fact that she was one of the last popular acts to emerge before the breakup of the country.

She has described herself as being "Yugo-nostalgic".

Along with her husband, Slobodan Živojinović and friend, Saša Popović, Brena co-founded and co-owned Grand Production, the biggest record label and production company in the Balkans.

In early 1980, at the age of 19, Fahreta began singing with a band called Lira Show when the group's original singer Spasa left the band because her husband, a boxer, did not want his wife to be a singer.

Saša Popović, the band's frontman, was initially opposed to the idea that Fahreta should be the band's new singer, but later changed his opinion.

She subsequently moved to Novi Sad and then to Belgrade.

Brena's first performance with Lira Show occurred on 6 April 1980 in the hotel Turist in Bačka Palanka.

Since her career began in 1980, she has become arguably the most popular singer of the former Yugoslavia, and a top-selling female recording artist with more than 40 million records sold.

The same year Lepa Brena and Slatki Greh appeared in the first part of Yugoslav classic comedy film A Tight Spot with popular comedian Nikola Simić and actress Ružica Sokić, which raised their status and brought them almost instant fame.

Lira Show changed their name to Slatki Greh (Sweet Sin) in 1981.

Brena is also often credited with creating the turbo-folk genre with her first two albums Čačak, Čačak (1982) and Mile voli disko (1982).

Brena and Slatki Greh premiered their first studio album, Čačak, Čačak, on 3 February 1982.

The album was written mostly by Milutin Popović-Zahar, and the career-manager was Vladimir Cvetković.

They would again team up with songwriter Milutin Popović-Zahar for their second studio album Mile voli disko (Mile Loves Disco), released 18 November 1982.

In addition to the title song, the album had a couple of other hit songs: "Duge noge" ("Long Legs") and "Dama iz Londona" ("London Lady").

In 1983, Lepa Brena and Slatki Greh ended their collaboration with Milutin Popović-Zahar and Vladimir Cvetković.

That same year Lepa Brena and Slatki Greh participated in Jugovizija, the Yugoslav selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "Sitnije, Cile, sitnije".

The song was released on an extended play of the same name, along with another song.

Their appearance on Jugovizija caused controversy, since the competition was traditionally dominated exclusively by pop artists, and Lepa Brena belonged to a totally different music genre, which was folk-pop, or also called novokomponovana muzika.

Although they did not qualify for the prestigious European competition, Lepa Brena and Slatki Greh won the contest, gaining even more popularity.

1984 saw Brena and her band begin a cooperation with a new manager and producer, Raka Đokić.

Bato, Bato (Brother, Brother), their third album, was released the same year.

A new provocative image was accompanied by a new musical style, different from the one fostered by Popović.

Later that year, they held a concert in neighboring Romania, at the stadium in Timișoara to an audience of 65,000, what was at time among the most successful concerts of a Yugoslav musician outside their home country.

Their next three albums, Pile moje (My Little One, 1985) and Voli me, voli (Love Me, Love) and Uske pantalone (Tight Trousers, both 1986) would propel her to the throne of the Yugoslav music scene.

Along with these albums, Brena established a cooperation with Serbian folk star Miroslav Ilić and recorded a collaborative extended play Jedan dan života (One Day of Life), which featured four songs, including a romantic duet called "Jedan dan života", and the song "Živela Jugoslavija" (Long Live Yugoslavia), which was received with a mixed response.

The latter song was in line with Brena's only official political stance: an uncompromising support of a united Yugoslavia, with her becoming a symbol of this view.

By the end of 1986, Lepa Brena had become the star of Belgrade social jet-set, and the most popular public figure in Yugoslavia.

At the start of the Bosnian War in 1992, her sister Faketa emigrated to Canada, where she lives today, while Brena stayed in Belgrade where she had been living since 1980.

Her first performance for an audience was in the fifth grade at a local festival, singing a Kemal Monteno song named "Sviraj mi o njoj".

She later reflected, "It was the only time in my life that I've ever experienced stage fright."

Afterwards, she started performing regularly at dance parties in Brčko.

Born into a Muslim family in the outskirts of Tuzla, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, she grew up in Brčko as the youngest child of Abid Jahić (c. 1928 – 22 October 2010) and Ifeta (Smajlović; 15 April 1934 – 21 November 2014) alongside her sister Faketa and brother Faruk.

Both of her parents are originally from villages near Srebrenik; her father was born in Ježinac and her maternal family hailed from Ćehaje.

While a guest on a Croatian television show in March 2014, she was asked if she had been ashamed of having a Muslim background, to which she replied: "Why would I be ashamed? I was and stay what I am. Today I am Fahreta. I am proud of my parents and roots".

She said of her stage name, that Brena was given to her by her basketball coach Vlado, while the epithet Lepa was given to her by showman Minimaks.

In 2019, they decided to sell Grand Production for €30 million.