Turbo-folk is a music genre originating in Serbia in the early 1990s. It was a dominant style during the Milosevic era, and is often associated with war, mafia and the macho culture which had accompanied it.

Contents

1 Influences 2 Culture of Turbo-folk 3 The origin of the term 4 External links

Influences

It is a blend of various musical traditions, including popular music of Serbian and Roma brass bands, Middle Eastern beats, Turkish and Greek pop music on the one side and rock and roll and contemporary electronic dance music on the other. Turbo-folk was derived from contemporary Balkan folk, but it uses electronic instruments instead of the traditional accordion, and it is mainly the vocals with characteristic ululations that distinguish it from Western pop music.

All production and marketing strategies in the Serbian turbo-folk music both emulate and worship global trends in music, dance, fashion and design. The turbo-folk star Ceca started as a girl who sang "I am a cheeky flower" at a local music festival in Ilidža, but has achieved a level of fame and glamour greater than that of any Balkan folk music performer, and is frequently compared to such global stars as Madonna and Britney Spears. Before Ceca's big concert in the Belgrade Marakana stadium, there had already been confessionals, serials, and all other sorts of mechanisms already seen in the global popular culture. This was also reflected in, and perhaps caused by, the fact that when the war and economic crisis started, many professionals who had previously worked in the Yugoslav new-wave circle during the 1980s had offered their services to the more profitable Balkan folk camp, which they otherwise often despised.

Culture of Turbo-folk

Turbo-folk is often dismissed as vulgar, almost pornographic kitsch glorifying a culture of crime, corruption and nationalistic xenophobia. It has been seen as a threat to the concept of urban and cosmopolitan culture that implies a European identity and favors a mix of classical and pop-rock music.

Yet turbo-folk was equally popular amongst all the Southern Slav nations during the brutal wars of the 1990s, reflecting perhaps the common cultural sentiments of the warring sides. When a market seller in Sarajevo was asked why in the midst of a Serb bombing of the city he illegally sold CDs of the turbo-folk superstar Ceca, a wife of the notorious Serbian warlord Arkan, he offered a laconic retort: "Art knows no borders!" Indeed, one of the greatest of Ceca's hits at the time, "If you were wounded, I'd give you my blood..." could be heard in the trenches of both sides. Turbo-folk music was in fact often dismissed by Serbian conservative nationalists as a part of an undesirable "Turkish" aspect of the Serb identity that must be uprooted, or a part of an equally repulsive "Teheranization" of Serbia.

Turbo-folk had a considerable following among the urban youth, with no parallels in its Balkan folk predecessor. Dizelaši, as they are called, due to their fondness for Diesel clothes, represented a new brand of young men, who favored a healthy, sporty life style and macho values.

The turbo-folk culture was actively promoted on television, most notably on Serbian Pink and Palma TV-channels which featured many turbo-folk music videos. They are criticized by some for being too eroticized, celebrating the external symbols of the easy acquisition of wealth, and promoting violence. However, others respond to this critique by arguing that precisely such semiotic content is representative of the global pop-cultural scene as well. An average music video shown on MTV shows as many if not more "women treated as objects", golden chains on muscular bodies, and in general everything that is recognized and condemned as banal, sub-intellectual and unsophisticated. In Western pop-rock music all of this is typically defended as being motivated by the ability to provoke and challenge "safe" value systems of the civic order. The subversive potential of turbo-folk is to be found in the fact that this phenomenon represents an imitation of global trends in popular culture but is, both by its critics and by its fans from abroad (including cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling), treated as in opposition to those trends.

Turbo-folk is an authentic expression of the latest tragic Balkan wars era. With its essentially romantic outlook, it offered a much needed escapism from the gloomy reality to many followers. In many ways it reflects the decadence of the culture of the former Yugoslavia, and Serbia in particular, during this period.

The origin of the term

The term "turbo-folk" itself was coined by contemporary Montenegrin singer-songwriter Rambo Amadeus who, at the beginning of his career, parodied the modern tendencies of popular folk music in several his songs. The "turbo" prefix was probably inspired by one of the first hit songs in this genre, "200 na sat" ("200 per hour") by one of turbo-folk pioneers, Ivan Gavrilović , a song that glorified fast cars and hedonistic approach to life.

External links

• Report about turbo-folk, ceca and politics