Dino Merlin

Edin Dervišhalidović (born 12 September 1962), known professionally as Dino Merlin, is a Bosnian singer-songwriter and record producer.

[3][4] Nicknamed "The Wizard" (Bosnian: Čarobnjak), Dino is widely regarded as one of the most prominent and commercially successful artists to have emerged from the former Yugoslavia.

The school and its significant surroundings – Emperor's Mosque, President Tito's konak, and Hotel Nacional – influenced his later art.

During after-school hours, he performed in a music duo with his childhood friend and keyboardist Mensur Lutvica, with whom he later established the band Merlin.

Dervišhalidović was heavily influenced by the Yugoslavian musicians Bijelo Dugme, Zdravko Čolić, Kemal Monteno, and Toma Zdravković, among others.

During this time, he married his girlfriend Amela and worked two shifts a day at a metal factory in the suburbs of Sarajevo for a few years.

[15] With the band, Dervišhalidović has recorded 5 studio albums: Kokuzna vremena in 1985, Teško meni sa tobom in 1986, Merlin in 1987, Nešto lijepo treba da se desi in 1989, and Peta strana svijeta in 1990.

Dervišhalidović began his solo career under the name Dino Merlin in 1991 and has since recorded six studio albums: Moja bogda sna in 1993, Fotografija in 1995, Sredinom in 2000, Burek in 2004, Ispočetka in 2008, and Hotel Nacional in 2014.

During the Bosnian War, several members of Merlin were killed, including their long-time manager Kemal Bisić, with whom Dino was close.

[16] Not long after the band dissolved, Dino was invited by the Bosnian state government to write the country's first-ever national anthem "Jedna si jedina".

He again participated in the Eurovision Song Contests in Jerusalem in 1999 (singing "Putnici" with Béatrice Poulot, a French singer) and in 2011 with "Love in Rewind".

[21] The subsequent tour promoting Sredinom included over 200 concerts with a performance at the Koševo City Stadium in Sarajevo in front of an audience of about 80,000.

[29] Dino worked for five years pro bono as the honorary and de facto president of the assembly of AMUS, the main association of music artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

During the 2014 Southeast Europe floods, his team was heavily involved in humanitarian work, distributing water, food, blankets and other provisions to the most endangered parts of Bosnia and Serbia.

Dino in 2008