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R. Archer Assessing Turbofolk Controversies Popular Music PDF
R. Archer Assessing Turbofolk Controversies Popular Music PDF
R. Archer Assessing Turbofolk Controversies Popular Music PDF
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Rory Archer
Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz
Abstract
This article explores controversies provoked by the Serbian pop-folk musical style turbofolk
which emerged in the 1990s. Turbofolk has been accused of being a lever of the Miloevi
regime an inherently nationalist cultural phenomenon which developed due to the specific
socio-political conditions of Serbia in the 1990s. In addition to criticism of turbofolk on
the basis of nationalism and war-mongering, it is commonly claimed to be trash, banal,por-
nographic, (semi-)rural, oriental and Balkan. In order to better understand the socio-
political dimensions of this phenomenon, I consider other Yugoslav musical styles which predate
turbofolk and make reference to pop-folk musical controversies in other Balkan states to help
inform upon the issues at stake with regard to turbofolk. I argue that rather than being under-
stood as a singular phenomena specific to Serbia under Miloevi, turbofolk can be understood
as a Serbian manifestation of a Balkan-wide post-socialist trend. Balkan pop-folk styles can be
understood as occupying a liminal space an Ottoman cultural legacy located between (and
often in conflict with) the imagined political poles of liberal pro-European and conservative
nationalist orientations. Understanding turbofolk as a value category imbued with symbolic
meaning rather than a clear cut musical genre, I link discussions of it to the wider discourse of
Balkanism. Turbofolk and other pop-folk styles are commonly imagined and articulated in terms
of violence, eroticism, barbarity and otherness the Balkan stereotype promises. These pop-folk
styles form a frame of reference often used as a discursive means of marginalisation or exclusion.
An eastern other is represented locally by pop-folk performers due to oriental stylistics in their
music and/or ethnic minority origins. For detractors, pop-folk styles pose a danger to the
autochthonous national culture as well as the possibility of a European and cosmopolitan
future. Correspondingly I demonstrate that such Balkan stereotypes are invoked and subverted
by many turbofolk performers who positively mark alleged Balkan characteristics and negotiate
and invert the meaning of Balkan in lyrical texts.
Keywords
turbofolk, Serbia, music, nationalism, Balkanism, auto-Orientalism
1)
Since the 1950s party-led state cultural policy was abandoned in Yugoslavia (Hofman 2010:
149; see also Naumovi 1996: 56).
2)
The term was coined by Rambo Amadeus, an alternative performer who claimed Folk is the
people. Turbo is the system of injecting fuel under pressure to the motors inner combustion.
Turbo-folk is the combustion of the people. Turbo-folk isnt music. Turbo-folk is the love of the
masses. Activation of the lowest passions of the homo sapiens. Turbo-folk is the system of inject-
ing the people. I didnt invent Turbo-folk, I gave it its name (cited in Prnjak 2008).
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 181
being. This polarizing musical style immediately became associated with the
Miloevi regime, war and the moral downfall of Serbia for its opponents. For
fans it represented a new musical variant, a more modern continuation of
NCFM, tapping into dance music which was sweeping Western Europe at the
time. Turbo implied speed, power and modernity, while folk represented the
remaining semblance of traditional melos (most commonly expressed through
the oriental trilling of the female voice).
In the post-2000 era, pop-folk music has continued to thrive in Serbia and
the wider region, and as the gap between pop-folk and other styles has contin-
ued to lessen, terms for categorization have become even more vague. The
pop element of pop-folk styles has won out in Serbia for instance the dif-
ference between traditional folk styles and turbofolk has never been greater
(Gordy 2005: 16). Despite the defanging of turbofolk (ibidem) the style
remains controversial, having retained a host of extra-musical symbolic prop-
erties. A range of terms (many with pejorative connotations) currently used
in Serbo-Croatian to refer to pop-folk variants include; turbofolk, narodnjaci
(folksies), cajke,3 irilica (Cyrillic), neofolk, digara (liver), (novo-komponovana)
narodna muzika ([newly composed] folk music) or simply folk. References
to pop-folk variants are so dominant that in everyday speech folk has come to
denote pop-folk rather than authentic folk music (izvorna muzika) or
ethno these terms are identified and delineated as such. For the purpose of
this article I predominantly use pop-folk as an umbrella term to encompass
the (contested) variants and terms mentioned above.
Gruji writes that uses of the term turbofolk carry certain cultural inclu-
sions and exclusions, surpassing pure musicological or technical demarca-
tion (2006: 35). Rather than embarking on tenuous debates to establish
what constitutes turbofolk in an ethno-musicological sense,4 it appears more
pertinent to ask who is using it, and why? Concurring with this view, Baker
considers turbofolk to act less as a concrete definition of musical directions
and more as a conceptual category which aggregates connotations of banality,
foreignness, violence and kitsch in order to provide critical apparatus with a
ready-made strategy of distancing (2007: 139). Turbofolk as a conceptual
3)
The etymology of cajke is uncertain but it may relate to szajha, a Hungarian word meaning
prostitute.
4)
Numerous debates have taken place in regards to turbofolk a prominent example (involving
ethnomusicologists and numerous other commentators) is the controversy surrounding Moja
tikla, Croatian performer Severinas 2006 entry for the Eurovision Song Contest (see Baker
2008).
182 R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207
Turbofolk as metaphor
Much criticism of NCFM was levelled against its banality and rural or semi
urbanized qualities (exemplified in lyrics like Poor me who sleeps on a
wooden bed while my Mile is on Apollo 95 or, My village more beautiful
5)
Spavam jadna u drveni krevet/a moj Mile u Apolo 9 (Mainka Luki).
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 183
6)
Moje selo lepe od Pariza (Rade Jorovi).
7)
Gastarbajter, from the German Gastarbeiter (guest worker) refers to Yugoslav migrants to
German speaking lands from the 1960s onwards. Mostly from poorer villages and working
classes the term implies a lack of cultureand a peasant background similar to the stereotype
of neofolk audiences.
184 R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207
(ibid.: 41). Gordys research shows a similar pattern; he observes that musical
taste became an important indicator not only between the distinction
between urban and peasant culture but of orientation towards the regime
(Gordy 1999: 105). Although turbofolk was opposed as a symbol of Serbian
nationalism, moral decline and the Miloevi regime, other value judgements
are very apparent and have not receded since 2000 (while the cognitive link to
nationalism and war has). From the anti-nationalist standpoint this includes
xenophobic, violent, cheap, kitsch, tasteless and vulgar (Jansen
2002: 42) and garbage, gastarbeiter-like, primitive and Balkan (Gordy
1999: 140164), the epitome of trash culture in Serbia in the 1990s
(Simi 2009: 188).
Gordy observes that in Belgrade, rock music is perceived as high art
which is implicitly opposed to neofolk, which is regarded as Balkan and
primitive, feeding into the larger rhetorical framework of urban self-percep-
tions (1999: 144). Such a framework is probably the most common non-
nationalist way of understanding events in Yugoslavia (Jansen 2005: 154; see
also Brown 2001). During the anti-Miloevi protests of winter 1996/1997 in
Belgrade there was a self-conscious ban on turbofolk which was considered
the antithesis of urban dignity and subjectivity ( Jansen 2001: 4950). The
opposition radio station B92 prided itself that it had never played one narod-
njak (ibidem).8 Narratives which hold turbofolk as morally and culturally
inferior remain salient in Serbia during the 2000s according to Simi (2009)
and Maleevi (2003).
A lot has been written about Turbo Folk by both journalists and academics in
the West. For example, journalist Peter Morgan described Turbo Folk as the music
of isolation, while another journalist, Robert Black, described the singers of Turbo
Folk as the balladeers of Ethnic Cleansing. Black added that Turbo Folk represented
8)
Ironically, in the post-2000 period B92 television is increasingly criticized for emulating TV
Pink with low culture programming and incessant advertising.
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 185
the sound of the war and everything that war has brought to this country (Hudson
2003: 172).
9)
Yugoslav Left.
10)
Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, the authoritarian ruling party of Bosnia and
Herzegovinas Republika Srpska entity.
186 R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207
of music and nation which can be analyzed and does not represent fixed ana-
lytical categories (2007:112). A large majority of musicians of diverse genres
(NCFM, zabavna,11 rock, izvorna12) supported, either explicitly or tacitly, the
official positions of the emerging nationalist regimes and fracturing political
units [in Yugoslavia] (Rasmussen 1995: 197). Rock musicians like Bora
orevi (frontman of Ribjla orba [Fish soup]) and Oliver Mandi, consid-
ered rather counter-cultural during the 1980s (Ramet 1994: 104), wavered
between public agitation for Miloevi and more extreme (etnik) political
options such as the wartime political leadership of Republika Srpksa. orevi
declares in song Good Zagreb chicks, they were like toys to us; Ah my Zagreb
pal, soon youll sing in German [] here we come to plunder all of you; My
Zagreb brothers, Im a peasant from aak, dont let me finish all of you
(cited in Rasmussen 2002: 1978). Ironically, perhaps the only neofolk anti-
war song of the early 1990s came from the (then future) wife of Arkan, Ceca
Velikovi, in a duet with Yugoslav actor Rade erbedija Neu protiv druga
svog (I wont be against my friend/comrade). The song explicitly takes an anti-
war stance and as a result was absent from Serbian and Croatian airwaves,13
being played only in Bosnia. The chorus declared: But I will not, will not,
will not, I will not be against my friend [comrade], but I will not, will not, will
not, I will not be against my own people.14
Although significant numbers of non-Serbian minorities (mostly Roma
and Muslim) were represented in the Serbian pop-folk music business, most
have demonstrated a Serbian national identity publicly supporting a collec-
tivist national spirit (Gruji 2006: 12) while sidelining their non-Serbian
identification. This was predictably acute in the war years of the 1990s in the
context of Serbian nationalist euphoria in which there was not space in pub-
lic life for those of a different faith or nationality (Dragievi-ei 1994:
203). Belgrade-born Roma performer Dej Ramadanovski rose to stardom in
such an environment affirming Serbian ultranationalism with public state-
ments like Brother Serbs, Gypsies are with you15 (ibidem). Ambiguous atti-
tudes on the part of ethnic minority performers in terms of national
11)
Pop music of the Yugoslav estrada associated with Croatian producers.
12)
Rural authentic folk music, often posited as the polar opposite of inauthentic
turbofolk.
13)
By this stage Serbian and Croatian state media were in the thralls of nationalist propaganda
(see Thompson 1999; MacDonald 2002).
14)
A ja neu neu i neu/neu protiv druga svog/a ja neu neu i neu/neu protiv narodamog.
15)
Brao Srbi, Cigani su s vama.
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 187
16)
Similarly in Bulgaria the Muslim Roma Ibryam Hapazov began a successful career as
(Orthodox Bulgarian sounding) Ivo Papov in the 1980s (Rice 2002: 27). Bosnian performer
Nino (born Amir Rei) changed his name to Nikola after to converting from Islam to Serbian
Orthodoxy. He then reconverted to Islam in 2004 (R.J. 2007).
17)
Her name in Bosnian (or Croatian) would be Lijepa Brena.
18)
aak, aak umadinski rokenrol[] Mile voli disko disko a ja kolo umadinsko.
188 R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207
monument (everyone visiting Tuzla gets taken here), listing other Serbian
public figures who have visited the site (R.S. 2004).19
Despite the cognitive association between turbofolk, war and socio-
economic hardship in Serbia, the content of commercial turbofolk has gener-
ally been anationalist in form.20 Critics of the musical style concede that it did
not have an overt nationalist lyrical or visual content rather, it aimed to
divert the attention of the population away from the policy of poverty and
war, and direct it towards the attractive and inaccessible image of the lifestyle
of turbo folk stars....an escapist, pink, rosy culture as a refuge from the
gloomy reality (Kronja 2004: 7), an antithesis to the misery on the streets
(Nikoli 2005: 132), and a means of forgetting the present while maintaining
symbolic aesthetic links to global fashion trends through glamorous figures
like Ceca (Papi 2002: 143).
Ceca, embodying the synthesis of Serb nationalism and pop-folk for many
observers, distances her opus from her nationalist persona by depoliticizing
her musical dimension21; although I consider myself a big patriot I have not
one patriotic song in my repertoire, they are all love songs (B92 2004).
Furthermore, she points out her popularity amongst women: Women like
me a lot, when Im touring abroad about 80 percent of my concert goers are
female (ibidem). Voli and Erjavec consider that Cecas national identity as a
Serb gets overridden by her personal identity of a strong, powerful, smart
woman who has triumphed over hardship which is understood by the audi-
ence in depoliticized terms (2010: 104). Ceca is popular in Croatia and Bosnia
Herzegovina, which suffered violent Serbian military agression including
many war crimes perpetrated by her husband and his paramilitary formation
The Serb Volunteer Guard, better known as Arkans Tigers.
Many other singers seek to project a neutral or skeptical attitude towards
political orientation. When confronted with the issue of political affiliation in
19)
ivojinovi listed Gordana Sua, ore Balaevi. eljko Joksimovi, Zdravko oli, aban
auli, Stoja, Mile Kiti, Indira Radi, Ljuba Alii [] and all our sports teams who have ever
visited Tuzla (R.S. 2004).
20)
An agitprop nationalist variant of folk music did develop in the 1990s (see Gordy 1999:
130132) but was rather marginal, the preserve of extremist radio stations like Radio Ponos this
article focuses on music which has a greater mass appeal, artists who belong to the Serbian
estrada.
21)
In Croatian post-Yugoslav musical discourse Ceca represents the most othered Serbian
performer due to her nationalist credentials (Baker 2006: 284).
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 189
a 2004 B92 documentary Sav taj folk (All that folk), performers Mira kori
and Dej Ramadanovski recall that although they have performed for a num-
ber of political parties they did so to earn a living and not because of political
leanings. Singing is implied to be differentiated from politics the duty of the
singer is to sing, for a price. The moral dimensions of supporting particular
political options through song are ignored (possibly for fear of alienating
sections of the audience). When questioned about political activism in the
Serbian estrada (show business scene), Vesna Zmijanac remarks:
Let God help colleagues of mine who are politically engaged! Music and politics dont
go together. Its not terrible that someone from the show business scene goes into poli-
tics, but only under the condition that they do not sing anymore. I cannot connect
the Estrada and its emotion to the emotions of politics one of them has to be false
(Aimovi 2001).
Zmijanac also suggests that performers do not always have the power to
choosewhich political parties or events to sing for: The record labels have a
big role. If they demand a singer sings then they have to do it, regardless of
their own convictions (ibidem).
Although neofolk styles were interpreted as synonymous with nationalism
and war by Serbian democratic opposition in the 1990s, the same style has
come under attack by Serbian nationalists for violating models of national
culture in particular for containing oriental stylistic attributes (Simi 2007:
108). According to an understanding of the nation which considers the simi-
larity of culture as the basic social bond necessary for the political principle
of nationalism (Gellner 1997: 24) the cultural heterogeneity of sources audi-
ble in pop-folk styles renders turbofolk a problematic instrument of dissemi-
nation for some nationalist agitators. Turbofolk has encountered conservative
resistance which considers it as a throwback to taboo Turkish aspects
of Serb identity, thus violating imagined notions of a pristine national culture.
As ivkovi observes, the entangled complex of the Turkish Taint remains
extremely potent in Serbian nationalist mythology (1998). Numerous public
figures in the realm of cultural production saw turbofolk as an attack on the
Serbian spiritual tradition (urkovi 2004: 280). During a July 1994 session
of Serbian parliament, member of the opposition coalition Democratic
Movement of Serbia (and choral singer) Pavle Aksentijevi played a song by
Serbian turbofolk performer Dragana Mirkovi. He juxtaposed this with a
nearly identical-sounding contemporary Iranian pop song, accusing the estab-
lishment of deliberately polluting Serbdom with oriental tunes (ivkovi
190 R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207
In the Balkan Peninsula in the early 1990s, the demise of socialism gave a
greater impetus to a return to Europe through democratization and free
market economics. Democratization enabled the spread of pop-folk by reduc-
ing the burden of state supervision in cultural production. The unrestrained
free market, coupled with technological advancement, further facilitated the
proliferation of pop-folk via (mostly pirated) cassettes in response to popu-
lar demand. The various Balkan pop-folk styles inflected by the Ottoman
Ecumene exhibit a symbiotic development, particularly during and after the
later years of socialism when NCFM penetrated the borders of Yugoslavias
Eastern neighbours. As Yugoslav NCFM developed largely free from the rigor-
ous national cultural models imposed by the harsh communist regimes of
Bulgaria, Romania and Albania it served as a source and model to be emulated
in the region.
Chalga ( also called popfolk or ethnofolk) is the most common
name for a musical folk hybrid that emerged in Bulgaria in the 1990s. It devel-
oped from svatbarska muzika (wedding music performed mainly by Roma
bands) and was disseminated largely by live performances and pirated cassettes
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 191
After the introduction of nationalism in the area during the first half of the nineteenth
century, the Turkish yoke, or the Ottoman political and cultural influence, became
a serious problem for the Western-oriented members of the educated classes. In their
train of thought, national culture, including folk music, had to be free from foreign
influencesincluding those of the Ottoman Turks (Pennanen 2008: 127).
lethargy indicative of music for the Serbian kafana, itself a vestige of the for-
mer Ottoman presence (Buchanan 2008: 247).
Despite being understood as a western and liberating phenomenon by
fans in Romania and Bulgaria, in Yugoslavia at the time, NCFM was seen
despite its massive popularity as an inferior Eastern cultural frame, evi-
dence of a civilizational divide in Yugoslavia between an internal East (Serbia)
and West (Slovenia and Croatia), a view which was gaining political currency
by the late 1980s. From its inception in Yugoslavia, NCFM crystallized inter-
nally divisive issues, chief among them the distinction between Yugoslavias
east and west (Rasmussen 2002: xix). This became more acute with the adop-
tion of more oriental sounding stylistics by musicians in the 1980s in par-
ticular the musicians of Juni Vetar (Southern Wind) who worked with a
number of up and coming NCFM singers. The media exclusion and the
marginalization by the industry on the one hand and the musics great popu-
larity with the audience on the other suggest the oppositional dynamics of
the oriental surge (Rasmussen 1996: 99). The pattern of debate seen in the
other Balkan nation states in the 1990s was already beginning in Yugoslavia in
the 1980s. These debates hinged on the notion of the unsuitability of eastern
musical sources for the national audience and mutual exclusivity of these
sources and national culture.
As I have written elsewhere (Archer, 2012) panicked discourses generated
by regional pop-folk styles in other Balkan states (as well as in Israel, Turkey
and Egypt) are remarkably similar to that of neofolk variants in Serbia/
Yugoslavia (though stripped from cognitive associations linking war and pop-
folk music). Bulgaria for example has seen heated public debates since the
1990s where chalga has been accused of endangering Bulgarian national iden-
tity due to its supposed primitivism and backwardness. Implicit in such
debates is the symbolic exclusion of the local other, heavily represented in
chalga by Bulgarias largest minorities, Turks and Roma (see Levy 2002). Some
established musicians called for institutional control, i.e. censorship, to limit
the musics access to the media. They demanded the cleansing of the national
soundscape of what were deemed to be bad, vulgar, and strange sounds
coming from the uncivilised experiences of local Roma and Turks (ibid.:
225).
Similar concerns were raised in national terms in Romania. Beissinger
writes that muzic oriental brings to the fore discussions of where Romania
lies in relation to the Balkan/Europe construct as well as the position of Roma
and other national minorities within contemporary Romania (2008: 97). The
194 R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207
22)
Albania, Kosovo, Western Macedonia and parts of Southern Serbia and Montenegro.
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 195
absence of state approval in Romania and later in Croatia. They would most
likely have also done so in Serbia. Indeed, after turbofolk fell out of favor with
the regime in the mid-1990s (and more so after the removal of Miloevi from
office in 2000) the style has remained extremely popular.
Although Serbian turbofolk and similar contemporary styles have had criti-
cism levelled against them for the last two decades, their popularity has not
waned. Writing of the examples of resistance to negative stereotypes of the
Balkans which found expression in the 1990s, olovi considers the new
music folklore (turbofolk, chalga, etc.) to be at the forefront: This culture
arrogantly glorifies the Balkans as they actually are: backward, oriental, but
own and close (2007: 9). Consumption of pop-folk styles can be viewed as
affirmative in the face of cultural exclusion on the part of national elites who
put forward their programmes for national emancipation, modernization
and democratization as a flight from the Balkans (ibidem). Kiossev considers
Bulgarian chalga in these terms due to the styles alleged transgression of
European and national norms (2002: 184):
[Pop-folk] turns the lowermost picture of the Balkans upside down and converts the
stigma into a joyful consumption of pleasures forbidden by European norms and
taste. Contrary to the traditional dark image, this popular culture arrogantly cele-
brates the Balkans as they are: backward and Oriental, corporeal and semi-rural, rude,
funny, but intimate [] (ibidem).
full of ironic social criticism straying beyond the bounds of Western political
correctness (2008: 1445). Serbian performer Slaana Ristis 1995 hit Mafija
(Mafioso) ambiguously addresses the proscribed role of the criminals moll in
this fashion: You can give me/everything, everything, everything/but I wont
be with you/because youre a Mafioso. You drive in vain/an expensive, fast car/
but whats it worth to you?/I wont be yours.23
23)
Sve, sve, sve/moe da mi da/al ja neu s tobom/jer si mafija/Ti uzalud vozi/skupa, brza
kola/ali ta ti vredi/neu biti tvoja.
24)
Novi Beograd (New Belgrade) is a huge grey socialist high-rise suburb of Belgrade.
25)
Groznica subotnje veceri udara.
26)
Banku za pijanku, banku za igranku/jo kui nije nikome u planu/tu gde se luduje, tu gde
se tuguje,/tu Bog stvori kafanu na Balkanu/pod ovim nebom ptice smo u letu/i kad se luduje, i
kad se tuguje/ma ovo nema na ovom belom svetu.
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 197
The next verse adds Let glasses fly towards the ceiling, to the ceiling and
concrete/sing in spite of every pain/pour the whiskey, add cola [].27 The
image of traditional wild Balkan kafana throwing glasses, singing through
pain is coupled with confidence and modernity whiskey and cola. Despite
the kafana being a key metaphor for male in-group social space (Rasmussen
2002: 70) women dominate Funky Gs Balkan kafana. Strengthening notions
of modernity are images of African American men, dressed in basketball
clothes, dancing with Funky G and her female friends. The kafana and the
behavior of partygoers are portrayed visually and lyrically as more wild and
passionate than anywhere else in the whole wide world. The images of (pre-
sumably) non-Balkan males conveys the intention and desire to participate in
the wider world (beli svet), in keeping with world trends (svetski trendovi).28
Like Funky Gs feminized kafana, a 2011 hit by performer Neda Ukraden
Na Balkanu (In the Balkans) also visually portrays female in-group social space.
The video was filmed in Sarajevo, Zagreb, Belgrade and Sofia with imagery of
various groups of female friends going out for the night. In the Balkans there
is no peace and quiet or sleep/only beside you can I sleep, and calm down/ In
the Balkans crazy nights, crazy girls, clubs/but I dream about you honey, my
only one is you.29
Seka Aleksi affirms a Balkan kafana. The chorus of her song Balkan
declares, let everyone hear/this song which fires up the kafana/let them all
hear/let everybody hear how we enjoy ourselves in the Balkans,30 and a verse
declares let this night be worth five/let the whole world be in awe/let them see
who is who/there is nothing else, thats that!31 Aleksi sings to a Balkan in-
group in this anthem-like song challenging them to let all the non-Balkan-
ers (Europeans) know how we enjoy ourselves.
27)
nek lete ae po plafonu, po plafonu i betonu/pevaju u inat svakom bolu sipaj viski/dodaj
coca colu.
28)
Invoking svetski trendovi (world trends) provides a rhetorical tool in Serbian estrada media
discourses to legitimize otherwise controversial behavior (metrosexual male fashion, erotic dance
styles, etc.). By pointing out that such acts or behavior is modern and acceptable in Western
Europe, it is implied that those who challenge or criticize it are somehow unmodern and
non-European.
29)
Na Balkanu nema mira/ni tiine, a ni sna/samo kraj tebe bih zaspala/i smirila se ja/Na
Balkanu lude noi/lude cure, klubovi/a ja o tebi duo sanjam/moje jedino si ti.
30)
Ba svi, nek uju svi/ovu pesmu to pali kafanu/ba svi, nek uju svi/kako se veseli na
Balkanu.
31)
Nek no ova vredi pet/nek se udi ceo svet/nek se vidi ko je ko/nema dalje to je to.
198 R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207
32)
Mala kua, mali prag/ti ko ivot meni drag/i u depu stoja, dve/to za sreu dosta je.
33)
Nema niko, to da zna / ovaj ivot kao na / to je njima pusti san / to je nama svaki dan /
hej Jo jednom pa opa / zajedno svi na sto / ma, kakva Evropa / na svetu nema to!
34)
Ostajem Balkanac i provincijalac/putuj evropo sreu elim ti ja/a ti mala kad ti zatreba
mukarac/doi es meni budi sigurna.
35)
mnogo si mi drai/nego tamo, tamo neki panac [] Deko Balkanac, nosi zlatni lanac/voli
trubae i stidi se da plae.
36)
Noas poruiu sve/da ne uvenem ko cvet/kao Balkan krv mi vri/ba sam gladan ljubavi.
37)
Vrele krvi sa ludog Balkana/meni je ljubav slabija strana/ja nikad ne posustajem/ja nikad ne
odustajem/takva sam roena, za tebe stvorena.
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 199
38)
ta je to prokleto u meni/to me od tebe odvelo/u krevet nepoznatoj eni/a tako sam te
voleo/Zauvek lea mi okreni/misli o meni bilo ta/al veruj to su samo geni/Balkan u mojim
venama.
200 R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207
39)
A blatant example of imagery denoting this transnational imagined collective can be seen in
a music video for Rodni kraj (Homeland) by Indira Radi which shows still images of all the
former Yugoslav republic capital and larger cities and street signs labeling these cities.
40)
Traicu te preko ambasade / ba me briga da li takve stvari rade / hou vizu, hitno idem tebi/
koja ena kada voli ne bi.
41)
Srce je moje na Balkanu.
42)
Ni Sveanke, ni Nemice / ti nisu ni do kolena / da s njima preem granice / ma, nema sanse,
voljena / Ni Francuska, ni vajcarska/nisu tvoja sudbina/zove dua balkanska/nema anse,
voljena.
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 201
Conclusion
styles in Serbia and other Balkan states supports this argument. Alongside the
notion of aesthetic inferiority and unsuccessful modernization, the presence of
a problematic orient remains salient in all Balkan states (on the part of many
self-declared cosmopolitans and avowed nationalists). Thus I have suggested it
is possible, indeed fruitful, to consider many of the controversiesof pop-folk
music within the bounds of scholarly works on balkanist discourse.
Examining musical texts and images demonstrates how a number of popu-
lar pop-folk performers have invoked, borrowed from, negotiated and reap-
propriated the Balkan stereotype. Ambiguous appeals to a Balkan collective
have become far more prevalent tropes than engaging with a nationally
bounded in-group. Performers, music, lyrics and videos link an abstract
Balkan to phenomena as diverse as migration, economic transformation,
the renegotiation of social relations, gender relations and tongue-in-cheek
critiques of Europeanization. Many studies which seriously engage with
turbofolk are primarily concerned with its political dimensions and relation-
ship to the Miloevi regime. Over a decade after the fall of the Miloevi
regime, pro/contra regime dichotomies are of limited analytical potential for a
dynamic cultural phenomenon which is no longer nationally bounded.
Productive directions for further research may include borrowing concepts
and methods from cultural studies and media studies, in particular approaches
that take audiences seriously and attribute agency to them. Research to date
has been more concerned with accounting for turbofolks opponents rather
than its listeners.
The account of pop-folk music I have provided here reflects the Belgrade-
centric nature of pop-folk (to the extent that I have prioritized discourse
emerging from the Serbian capital). Accounts of Balkan pop-folk controver-
sies from the perspective of other former Yugoslav states vary, though I believe
that certain tropes identified in this article remain consistent and interlinked
throughout the Balkans.43 In the former Yugoslavia, pop-folk styles can no
longer be posited as an instrument of nationalist agitation. Although perform-
ers may be interpreted as symbols in ethno-political discourse (Baker 2006)
and listening to the others music may be considered as a counter-cultural
strategy of rebellion particularly in the case of turbofolk in Croatia (J.L.,
43)
See for example Velikonja (2002) for an account of Balkan popular culture in Slovenia.
Works by Baker (2006; 2007; 2008; 2010) largely explore issues at stake in Croatia while
Sugarman (2008) details the phenomenon amongst Albanians in Kosovo and Macedonia. An
edited collection by Buchanan (2008) explores popular music and its relationship to Balkan
stereotypes and the Ottoman legacy at a regional level.
R. Archer / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 178207 203
2008) there is also evidence to suggest that pop-folk music is being con-
sumed within depoliticized parameters (Voli and Erjavec 2010). Popular cul-
ture has been at the forefront of the quiet but steady reconstitution of an
ambiguous post-Yugoslav space, part of a wider process conceived by Tim
Judah as the Yugosphere(2009). Just as in 1980s Yugoslavia, one can witness
in the current configuration of the Yugosphere a symbolic rejection of pop-
folk styles on the part of certain elites which contrasts sharply with the endur-
ing popularity of this music amongst its large audiences.
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Discography