Dengbej Kazo was born in 1950 in Van and now lives near Istanbul. He often gives concerts performing both popular Kurdish songs and his own compositions. He also improvises in keeping with the tradition of the dengbej (travelling Kurdish singers and storytellers). In 1960 the Turkish government officially banned the practice of the dengbej. In the 1980s many of the dengbej had to move to the cities in search of safety and work, and settled in their poorest sections. The dengbej tradition started to fade into oblivion. In 2003 a number of EU-funded projects were begun to protect this tradition. The memory of the dengbej is a rich fund of knowledge about Kurdish history and tradition. Documentation efforts are now underway to describe this extraordinary phenomenon of voices that embody the past.