Last Stop Southern Serbia: Vranja

 Good Morning to Vranja !

Vranja is a town in Southern Serbia with a high Romany population. In Yugoslav times, folk ensembles repertoire included dance suites, which they called ‘Vranjansky Čoček’. These were inspired by Romany music and dance and are fantastic to both listen, and of course, dance to. Enjoy!

Sadly I have to say, that this type of Romany music was and is neither created and often not performed by Romany musicians. Nevertheless, it is enjoyable. So I hope you will also enjoy my arrangement of another Vranjansky Čoček, which has even another non-Romany middle man, or rather middle woman meddling with it. This is Tatcho Drom performing:

Towards the end of our Serbian cyber travel, I would like to teach you another piece of music: Nišava Kori Pani, a Serbian Romani Gypsy song, here as instrumental version. I love the ‘internal’ combination of Serbian music style with Ottoman influences in certain part, see, or rather learn for yourself:

In my own cyber travels on YouTube, I came across this one. Join me in a little time travel in Serbia: watch the piece you learned last time on a music video from 1993. Make sure you stand up to do so, so you can’t fall off your chair laughing…

I feel, I would like to leave Serbia in a more serious mode, by sharing a song full of old history: Vidovdan, translated to 'St Vitus Day'. This song refers to the battle of Kosovo in 1389. Read more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidovdan_(song)

Travelling to the land of the Spirit and visiting a Serbian Music Legend

Ground breaking for Serbia's, or rather former Yugoslavia's music, and neck-breaking for many a TV show or concert organiser, the late Šaban Bajramović. Get to know the man, his full persona, including imprisonments, gambling and his amazing musical career in this publication – unfortunately this article misses each first letter of his name ’Š’, so add it in your mind in front of each ‘aban’….

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/aug/15/serbia

To make Šaban's musical acquaintance at the same time, you could listen to the video below whilst reading:

Šaban has hugely influenced the development of Serbian popular music. A Romany, loved and respected by both Romany and non-Romany, he was crowned 'King of Gypsy Music' in India by Indira Ghandi in the late 1980s, when the work 'Gypsy' was not yet politically incorrect... 

He composed and performed lots of Serbian songs, with lyrics and Serbian and Romany language back to back, thus influencing Serbian music slowly with Romany elements, which due to his huge popularity left large footprints on popular Serbian music of that time. Lets watch him live:

Time to travel to the Southern borders for today's Serbia, to a place with a high Romany population and great music, a music with much more Ottoman influence then in the rest of Serbia: Whilst travelling, lets listen to Đelem Đelem, the song considered as Romany Anthem: