A lot of Balkan music is shocking. Imagine if a country came bottom of the Eurovision Song Contest every single year for eternity, and you’re imagining the popular music scene you mainly hear in Montenegro – a choice between over-produced fake ballads sung by thugs or sledgehammer folk sung by pipecleaners. Clearly people love it, but then what do people know?
Luckily there are bright spots, and last week this corner of the Balkans has been illuminated by Darkwood Dub and Edo Maajka. Darkwood Dub have been around since the dawn of time – early promo photos featured them riding on dinosaurs – and are still going strong, with a solid fanbase many of whom were under 10 when the band started. It’s hard to describe their music – the “dub” part of it is mainly about the effects box they use on the vocals, with the occasional skanking rhythm in the background, and not really dub at all. They do feel quite 90s, but since they were ahead of their time, they’re in their own little musical universe in the Balkans. Here’s an average track with a nice video:
A different kettle of fish altogether: Edo Maajka, the region’s best-known rapper. There’s a lot of hip-hop around here; the clothing style is the same faux-American uniform as it is in most places, but the style is distinct. Serbian is a harsh language, perfect for battle raps, with consistent suffixes that make it easy to rhyme in. The one thing that Balkan rappers do have is something to rap about – war, sanctions, ethnic conflict, political shenanigens, and so on – although there’s always a worrying undercurrent of bling. Maajka has been around long enough that his rapping has a level of self-awareness that most don’t – he played out last night with his track Gansi, a trip down memory lane complete with Axl Rose impersonation:
