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| Marija Grujic and Lajhi |
Lajhi: Please, introduce yourself. What can the readers of Lajhi-blog know about you? What do you do and what are you interested in?
Marija Grujic: My name is Marija Grujic. I am from Serbia, from Belgrade and I am doing cultural theory, cultural studies and gender studies. I did my PhD on popular music, nation and representation of women in Serbia and in the Balkans. I am mostly interested in popular music, media phenomena, queer studies, film, literature, popular and mass culture in general. Turbo-folk was the main theme of my dissertation, of my research. Turbo-folk is a special genre of music and a cultural pattern in Serbia, but its elements are present almost everywhere in the Western Balkans, especially the countries of former Yugoslavia. It is very similar to some genres of pop music in Greece and Turkey but it is still different. There is a similar music genre in Bulgaria, called chalga. In Romania there is a comparable music production which is called manele. In Croatia people sometimes call this type of music tsaike. So there are different names and variations, but they are all similar: there is a corpus of genres which is related to turbo-folk in the Balkans.
LA: How did you decide that you want to invest your energy in researching turbo-folk? To me this means you would like to share something about it. What is your message?
MG: Because it is very popular and very specific to the Balkans and to Serbia in particular. It emerged after the fall of socialism. It is similar to the folk music that existed in the period of socialism and it came from there but after the fall of socialism, turbo-folk became a more dominant and aggressive version of folk music. Turbo-folk showed up as a very specific genre of popular culture of the post-socialism. It combines elements of folk music, of some traditional music and also elements of techno and dance music. It is often based on synthesizers. It has existed in the last 25 years so that the period of 1990s was the period of its rule but it is still very popular and dominant. It is a mainstream music in big part of the Balkans and in Serbia in particular. That's why I wanted to study this because young women and girls are mostly interested in this genre and they like to identify with these female stars, since the most popular stars of turbo-folk are women. So it is interesting to study how they look, how they behave, what ideology is coming from them, what are the messages, how the audience reacts, what the audience thinks. I did interviews, went to clubs and read media reports about these stars. I also interviewed musicians and then observed all these lyrics and videos and so on, and then I made some sort of conclusions on the base of that.
LA: Can you speak about the lyrics please? Because I can listen to this music but I cannot understand the lyrics.
MG: These lyrics are interesting because usually they speak about gender relations, about male-female relations and they are very often a very aggressive form of love. They usually sing about very strong emotions, about very severe and serious break-ups, manipulation. So it is not about a gentle and nice kind of love. It is usually about really dramatic relationships. Some lyrics are all about break-ups or about black-mailing so the lyrics are very melodramatic and the songs are mostly about strong men who are very merciless and who leave their women.
LA: I watched a video of a song from Ceca, the title was "Through the red light" ("Crveno")
MG: In the song, she is inviting a boyfriend or a husband of a friend to cheat on this friend with her. She is trying to seduce him. She is calling on him to “pass with me through red lights.” So that is the meaning of the lyrics.
Marija Grujic: My name is Marija Grujic. I am from Serbia, from Belgrade and I am doing cultural theory, cultural studies and gender studies. I did my PhD on popular music, nation and representation of women in Serbia and in the Balkans. I am mostly interested in popular music, media phenomena, queer studies, film, literature, popular and mass culture in general. Turbo-folk was the main theme of my dissertation, of my research. Turbo-folk is a special genre of music and a cultural pattern in Serbia, but its elements are present almost everywhere in the Western Balkans, especially the countries of former Yugoslavia. It is very similar to some genres of pop music in Greece and Turkey but it is still different. There is a similar music genre in Bulgaria, called chalga. In Romania there is a comparable music production which is called manele. In Croatia people sometimes call this type of music tsaike. So there are different names and variations, but they are all similar: there is a corpus of genres which is related to turbo-folk in the Balkans.
LA: How did you decide that you want to invest your energy in researching turbo-folk? To me this means you would like to share something about it. What is your message?
MG: Because it is very popular and very specific to the Balkans and to Serbia in particular. It emerged after the fall of socialism. It is similar to the folk music that existed in the period of socialism and it came from there but after the fall of socialism, turbo-folk became a more dominant and aggressive version of folk music. Turbo-folk showed up as a very specific genre of popular culture of the post-socialism. It combines elements of folk music, of some traditional music and also elements of techno and dance music. It is often based on synthesizers. It has existed in the last 25 years so that the period of 1990s was the period of its rule but it is still very popular and dominant. It is a mainstream music in big part of the Balkans and in Serbia in particular. That's why I wanted to study this because young women and girls are mostly interested in this genre and they like to identify with these female stars, since the most popular stars of turbo-folk are women. So it is interesting to study how they look, how they behave, what ideology is coming from them, what are the messages, how the audience reacts, what the audience thinks. I did interviews, went to clubs and read media reports about these stars. I also interviewed musicians and then observed all these lyrics and videos and so on, and then I made some sort of conclusions on the base of that.
LA: Can you speak about the lyrics please? Because I can listen to this music but I cannot understand the lyrics.
MG: These lyrics are interesting because usually they speak about gender relations, about male-female relations and they are very often a very aggressive form of love. They usually sing about very strong emotions, about very severe and serious break-ups, manipulation. So it is not about a gentle and nice kind of love. It is usually about really dramatic relationships. Some lyrics are all about break-ups or about black-mailing so the lyrics are very melodramatic and the songs are mostly about strong men who are very merciless and who leave their women.
LA: I watched a video of a song from Ceca, the title was "Through the red light" ("Crveno")
MG: In the song, she is inviting a boyfriend or a husband of a friend to cheat on this friend with her. She is trying to seduce him. She is calling on him to “pass with me through red lights.” So that is the meaning of the lyrics.
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| link to the music video |
MG: Yeah, her life is like a gangster movie...
LA: Yeah...she began her carrier when she was 14 years old and afterwards in the 90s she met Arkan... and today she is the most popular star in Serbia.
MG: Yes, she is the most popular star for almost 20 years now. She is the most popular singer in Serbia and the reason for her popularity is that her life was very dangerous so young women often identify with that. They are just impressed by that because she was dating dangerous men and she was always connected with something very controversial. Girls and women in post-socialist-Balkans, not all of them but most of them, like that kind of image.
LA: ..and she is a heroine today..
MG: Yes, she is a heroine today too and when she has a concert everyone goes to that concert. She has the image and charisma of a very strong woman. That is what many women like—that she looks like a very strong woman who has passed through a lot of things in life.
LA: Can you mention an example of nationalism through turbo-folk?
MG: Ceca is also very nationalistic. This is also strange because she is very nationalistic but still very popular. She is even very popular in countries where people really don't like Serbian nationalism. So she is popular in Croatia, in Slovenia, she is popular even in Kosovo... It is very bizarre. This shows that popular music is often very bizarre. This logic is very strange. That is how the whole popular culture and the whole culture in the Balkans is very controversial. There are a lot of controversial things in post-socialist countries and this turbo-folk music is 1 of them.
LA: It can blur a lot of things..I think...this music. I mean.. people can easily lose their sense of differentiating.
How does sexism appear in turbo-folk?
MG: All these female stars are dressed in a pornographic way and their lyrics are full of these very pornographic details. The songs are always about some form of sex and seduction, about some girl who is going with a man who has a lot of money and so on. These messages are usually sexist in turbo-folk and at the same time women are trying to marry rich guys. They all want to marry some businessmen or politicians or very rich people. So this turbo folk is not really an emancipating thing. It is popular but not emancipating for women. It is not very alternative, it is really mainstream. It just reinforces these patriarchal messages, conservative messages and sexist messages. But people still like it.
LA: Besides Ceca is there another example of such nationalist stars?
MG: All these singers are talking about these type of men: big patriots, who fit the image of these usual nationalist men. Everyone speaks about it in a direct way. These singers are creating a kind of music wh i ch has an idea of a homogeneous community. They all p.l.a.y. with nationalism in an indirect sense but the interesting thing is that they are not only popular in Serbia, they are popular in all these Balkan countries, so this nationalism is controversial. It is not always consistent, it is manipulative.
LA: ..and outside of the Balkans I don't think anybody can understand this because of the language..
MG: True, it is mostly focused on the Balkans. It is something w.h.i.c.h is not popular in Central-Europe or Western-Europe except among the immigrants. It is somewhat similar to some genres in Greece or in Turkey so usually Greek and Turkish people can understand this too. When we are somewhere abroad, Serbs, Albanians, Turks, Palestinians, Israelis, they usually listen to a similar kind of music but turbo-folk is typical for the Balkans and mostly popular in the Balkans.
LA: ..and among young people.
MG: Yes, mostly among young people but older people also like to p.l.a.y. this at wedding parties and at private parties..
LA: I think this message is a little bit strange: "I am a sexy and strong woman next to and depending on a really strange mad man"...
MG: Sometimes it is similar to hip-hop with all the dangerous men and very sexy women around but only partially because hip-hop is something w.h.i.c.h was often identified with black culture in the U.S. and it also has certain meanings for that community and it is still often understood as a particular culture music in USA, while turbo folk in Serbia is a dominant music. It is not for some particular groups, it is simply dominant in that environment so it does not have quite the same connotations like hip-hop.
LA: I think today black music has a really strong effect on popular music. One of my friends wrote about hip-hop lyrics, about how sexist they are and there is something mutual between hip-hop and turbo-folk..
MG: Usually people who play hip-hop, say that there is a reason why it is like that and that they are trying to send some positive message. So sexism is often an issue, but they claim that they have positive intentions. In turbo-folk usually the singers don't speak so much about ideology, they just play this music but still ideology is very strong because it comes through the images and through the public behavior and statements of performers. They don't speak so much about politics, those female singers, but they are sending very strong messages to girls like “Look at me, I am a rich woman, successful woman” and of course these girls have this idea that they should be like that. Many young women, for example, say that they would like to be like Ceca and they totally disregard the fact that she has actually had a very difficult life. They think this is the exciting life for a woman.
LA: And what do you think, what can a girl do in Serbia? She can watch these videos, she can wonder about these performers and what will she become?
MG: They dress up like these singers, they wear short-skirts, they put on a lot of make-up and go out to places where they can meet some rich older men. They are trying to marry that particular type of guy. Not all girls in Serbia, of course, but the majority of them have this image that they should actually find a guy who is making a lot of money, who is treating them that sort of way. They try to be this sexy girl who belongs to a man, you know, that is the ideology coming from that. They behave like that in clubs, for example. What you see in the music video, that's how clubs in Serbia look like. Girls are dressing up very nice, then they go to clubs and dance and then they're expecting to meet some men.
LA: What message would you like to send these girls?
MG: They should be independent, they should have a job themselves. They should invest in themselves and not depend on a man. Their goal in life should not be to be pretty, to marry a guy and to be his toy. They should have their own lives, find their values.
LA: These performers (to me) look like popular and cool drag-queens but it is a little bit different because I think cool drag-queens have a really good sense of humor and this is something I don't feel when I see these female turbo-folk singers.
MG: It is somehow different when women are presenting this over sexist message than when drag-queens are doing it. Yeah in case of a drag-queen, there is always some irony, some parody, there is a humor in all that.
Turbo-folk performers in Serbia don’t have this self-irony, they all behave like it is natural to look like that. They are simply overdoing this to attract attention, doing everything to look like they believe in it. I don’t think this should be called art. They are women who present entertainment mostly for men’s pleasure and they insist on this. They know that it sells. Their priority is to make money from that. This is the contemporary mass culture, or, to call it differently, consumer culture. There is not much intellectual thinking in that. That's how it goes. You have some mass culture everywhere, in the U.S. too. In a way you have it in U.K. namely everywhere, because this is the product of commercial taste.
LA: It's cool that you wrote about it because it is a concrete example (as like Ceca too) for something that is typical today, okay anytime and anywhere in different context, but it is typical. What do you think, other than its effects on young girls today, which other effect(s) can this music have?
MG: It is also popular among a male gay audience. It is popular among young male gay guys who like to dance to this music in clubs. These guys like this commercial music and like the melodramatic lyrics. So you can hear this music very often in gay clubs in Serbia and that is also interesting because although it is sexist, it also includes one type of minority culture. Although it officially has nothing to do with gay culture, none of these performers ever declared that they are gay.
LA: ..and Azis in Bulgaria?
MG: Azis is in Bulgaria, and there is a bit different situation in music scene, but I am here talking predominantly about Serbia which has developed a very traditionalist and masculine culture in last couple of decades, but in spite of that turbo-folk is very popular in gay clubs. This a phenomenon which is not easy to explain. I think gay culture also sometimes includes this sentimental exaggeration: make-up, melodrama, and so on. Very often the life of gay people is actually suppressed and melodramatic, especially in those countries where they have to hide their identity. In homophobic countries the life of gay communities is in general troubled, hidden and maybe sometimes they identify with certain elements of extreme melodrama, hard-feelings contents in turbo-folk songs and performances. It's interesting how it works. There is something about how people like Madonna, Beyonce or other big gay icons. It is also a kind of melodrama-like influence. One part of queer communities is looking for contents with highly sexualized sentimentality in popular culture, and reading this in their own way.
LA: Can others read your dissertation about this theme or it is available just for your university?
MG: My dissertation is available in the electronic collection of CEU (Central European University). So it is possible to read it.
LA: How do you see the queer life in Serbia? What can somebody, for example, a young person do who guesses that he/she is queer. How is the situation in Serbia?
MG: Serbia is a very homophobic country so many people are not open about their sexual orientation. They are not out to their families, although they are often out in front of their friends. In two cities, Belgrade and Novi Sad, there are clubs where they can go and get together. Also there are organizations where some people are doing an active work. So it is difficult but it is a little bit better than it was 20 or 15 years ago when there was just one club in the capital or when there were no clubs at all. At least people now know where they can meet each other.
There is still a big gay community in Belgrade because people are coming from all over the Balkans, moving there because it is a big city. But I think it is very difficult in small places, small towns. These conservative traditional family-relations make it very difficult. There is a lot of prejudice but now thanks to the Internet, thanks to organizations, and all these international connections, young people can educate themselves. They can meet other people, make their own culture so it's better than it was in the past, definitely.
LA: When will there be a Belgrade (Queer)Pride?
MG: There were two Belgrade Prides but it is still not popular in Serbia and there are a lot of people against it. A lot of people are threatening with violence so it is very difficult to organise it but it has happened twice. I don't know how it's going to be in the future but it is not supported by the majority population in Belgrade.
LA: Do you believe this is the way? What can you do?
MG: I think that people should educate families. I think education about minority rights, about gay-rights should be stronger in schools, in elementary education. Children should be educated about them very early and parents should be educated about them because people are learning mostly in families. In countries like Serbia something is coming from school but much more is coming through family still. The problem is like this: children are not getting enough positive messages from their parents. Schools also should do much more work on that. There should be special classes on how to respect minority rights, what minority rights are because many people in Serbia think that minority rights are something dangerous. They really think that if Pride is organized it is going to be dangerous for kids, for their child. People really believe that. People have no idea what the minority situation is. So there should be more education about that in kindergartens, in schools, even in companies. There is a lot of sexism in companies. Even some of my friends who work in companies where there should be a very high level of understanding of human relations, they complain how the men are very sexist there. There are a lot of sexist jokes and no one can speak up about that. This masculine dominant culture is very problematic. So in schools, at universities, at workplaces there should be much more education about that. Not only about gay rights. Women's rights are on a very low level too.
LA: I hope that you can do something for this. Thank you Marija.
MG: Thank you.
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| Marija Grujic and Lajhi |
Berlin, in December 2014
photos@The Corp
photos@The Corp
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