Gülşen Bayraktar, better known by her stage name Gülşen, (born May 24, 1976) is a Turkish singer and songwriter.

Gülşen Bayraktar was born on May 29, 1976 in Fatih, Capa, located on the borders of Istanbul, as the third and last child of a family from Ordu. His father, Arslan Bayraktar, was a mechanical engineer, while his mother, Nimet Bayraktar, was a housewife.

He started the Turkish Music Theory department at Istanbul Technical University.

Simultaneously with his university education, he took the stage in various nightclubs and bars in Istanbul, but he could not manage both school and work at the same time and dropped out after his first year.

As a result of his interest in Far Eastern martial arts during his high school years, he received karate training and got a black belt.

After leaving the university, she took Turkish folk music lessons and sang backing vocals for Çelik and Bendeniz for three months.

While on stage in a bar in Ataköy in 1995, he was liked by the album producer Serap Turgay and introduced to his wife Özkan Turgay and received an album offer. He accepted the offer and signed a four-album deal with Raks Music.

Standing out as a songwriter, who received positive feedback from music critics as well as her singing, Gülşen started to sing the songs she wrote especially after the early part of her career, and she prepared many hit songs for her colleagues that were successful in the charts.
Known for his sensitivity to social responsibility projects, the artist wrote and sang a song called 'The Brightest Star' in 2011 for UNICEF's Stars of Istanbul education project.

Gülşen married arranger and composer Ozan Çolakoğlu, the producer of her last three albums, in June 2016. The couple's first child, Azur Benan, was born in January 2017 in Fulya, Şişli.