Sjahin was born in 1972 Amsterdam, raised in Istanbul for the first six years of his life before moving back to the Netherlands to the small island of Texel in the North Sea. Sjahin is a permanent resident of the Netherlands where he makes a living as a musician, having founded and led several groups that include Bayuba Cante, Turqumstances and at present Tarhana and Afro Anatolian Tales and most recently Arifa. He is a producer and teacher of world music, specialized in percussion. During has studied and performed on five continents, learning from masters as far afield as Havana, Cuba to Istanbul, Turkey as well as India, Spain and Africa. The percussion instruments he masters range from bata drums, to congas, cajon, udu, various frame drums, and darbuka, riq to kanjira.