Muhamed Mujkanović, born 1941 in Tuzla, was one of the best interpreters of the Bosnian Sevdalinka and a first-class artist and composer of newly composed folk songs.
His father Hasan and mother Zumreta had four sons and three daughters in addition to Muhamed. Almost all family members Mujkanović’s had a sense of singing.
Already as a child, Muhamed stood out with his melodic voice, his vocal abilities and his musical talent. The environment predicted him a brilliant singing career, which later turned out to be true. He had his first singing appearances in 1956 at school events and festivals in the Tušanj district comprehensive school. Later, as a pupil of the secondary school of chemistry in Tuzla, he often performed with musicians of the municipal singing and dancing clubs.
He won the second prize at the first amateur singing competition in Tuzla in 1962 and attracted the attention of folk music lovers.
In 1963 he signed his first professional contract. In the same year, he was employed by Solana Tuzla as a chemical engineer, where he actively joined the work of the cultural-artistic workers’ association.
At the amateur singers’ competitions for folk songs “Search for the unknown best voice of Bosnia-Herzegovina” in 1968 and “Search for new stars of Yugoslavian pop and folk music” in 1969 he impressively won the first place.
The award from these competitions enabled him to appear on radio and television stations, make his first recordings and perform at music festivals.
At the renowned “Ilidža \’69” pop festival in Sarajevo, he performed for the first time and won third place.
Since then he has performed at this and other festivals of pop and folk music where he sang songs by outstanding composers, received awards and prizes almost regularly.
Invitations and guest appearances on numerous domestic and foreign tours, concerts and appearances on radio and television broadcasts, as well as archive recordings, records and video cassettes followed.
Using his rich singing experience, pronounced musicality and broad musical opus, Muhamed began composing Mujkanović himself, to win with his first composed work, the song “Emina u majke jedina” “Ilidža \’83”.
From 1964 he was a member of the Musicians and Artists Association of Bosnia-Herzegovina and in 1984 he received the prestigious prize of the “Musicians of Bosnia-Herzegovina”.
The time passed and Muhamed was employed in the salt factory and completed at the same time his singing performances. He married and founded a family. Unfortunately, he lost two sons.
Over the past 40 years, Muhamed has won almost all awards and prizes in the music industry at Mujkanović and has also been a recipient of many other awards.
He has made around 300 archive recordings of folk and pop music for radio and television, 30 singles and 10 LPs, 20 video and 30 audio cassettes, 2 film songs, 40 own compositions and 3 CDs.
He won 30 prizes at folk music festivals, for example: Winner of “Ilidža 1988”, with the song “Prelijepa Bosna” and got for it the golden flower, also for “Emina”, the golden lira for the song “Bili smo skupa jednu noć” he won at “Vogošća 1990”, silver record for the song “Moj Sevdahu” 1987.
He knows about 2000 folk songs.
Throughout this time he remained faithful to the original folk music – Sevdalinka and good newly composed songs. In 2000 he received the “Đulistan”, an important Bosnian-Herzegovinian award, for his contribution to the preservation of the tradition of Bosnian Sevdalinka.
He is known for his many humanitarian concerts at which he performed without consideration.
On the occasion of the anniversary of Muhamed Mujkanović’s, dedicated to his 40 years of musical activity, a concert was organized in the BKC Tuzla “40 years of singing with you”. On this occasion 2 CDs were released (Sevdalinka and the retrospective of hits over 40 years of work).
Muhamed died on 09 January 2015 in Tuzla from the consequences of a stroke at the age of 74 years.
