Category: Romani

Divanhana: Zavrzlama

July 21, 2022

The title of Divanhana’s sixth album is a Bosnian word meaning “knotted,” a refreshing departure from overused terms like “fusion” and “blending” to describe music that unites diverse elements. Based in sevdah (sometimes called Bosnian blues), the Sarajevo-based band’s wonderful tangle encompasses the Balkan, Turkish and Sephardic strands from which the style was woven in the sixteenth century, the jazz, classical, Latin and pop elements they add … More Divanhana: Zavrzlama

Mónika Lakatos and the Gipsy Voices: Hangszín

June 2, 2021

More than anything else, her voice—soaring, soulful, charismatic, bluesy, passionate—explains why Mónika Lakatos received the 2020 World Music Expo (WOMEX) Lifetime Achievement Award, becoming the first Roma artist to win the prestigious honor. Hangszín (Sound Colors), her second album with Gipsy Voices, further enhances her reputation on the world scene and also in Hungary … More Mónika Lakatos and the Gipsy Voices: Hangszín

Tsaziken: Machnaty

January 15, 2020

Like the queue outside the Louvre, the seven-woman chorus Tsaziken is a fascinating mix of disparate elements and common threads. Based in Cologne, with German and Slavic roots, on their second album they sing in eight languages and highlight a shared passion for combing the world’s cultures in search of traditional songs about love and destiny. The group ignited at a 2004 music festival when its four original singers met Raimund Kroboth, director of the … More Tsaziken: Machnaty

Romano Drom: Give Me Wine

November 20, 2019

Millennials, baby boomers, GenX and Z—today’s vocabulary suggests that each generation is a world unto itself, with distinct attitudes and values. Romano Drom’s Give Me Wine is all about generations, but in the classic sense of culture transmitted from parents to children, from antiquity to the twenty-first century. The Budapest-based band was founded in 1999 by the late Antal Kovács and … More Romano Drom: Give Me Wine

Khamoro Budapest Band: Hungarian Gypsy Music

September 1, 2017

One of the most commonly used Romani loan words in English is “pal”—a fraternal takeaway reflecting the solidarity that binds a wandering people. A powerful byproduct of that solidarity is music that breaches social barriers the Roma themselves have often been unable to penetrate. They planted flamenco in Spain and gave manouche jazz to France; further east, the Roma sound is routinely viewed as synonymous with Hungarian … More Khamoro Budapest Band: Hungarian Gypsy Music