Gypsy Music, Hybridity and Appropriation: Balkan Dilemmas of Postmodernity

Ethnologia Balkanica 15 (2011) Gypsy Music, Hybridity and Appropriation: Balkan Dilemmas of Postmodernity Carol Silverman, Eugene OR Abstract Balkan Gypsy music has recently become globalized – it is found in festivals of Balkan music and world music, on YouTube, and in dance club remixes by DJs. As Europe’s largest minority and its quintessential “other,” Roma face severe marginalization, yet ironically, their music, especially brass bands, commands growing attention. Referenc- ing debates about how collaborations and hybridity may be liberating and/or exploitative, I explore strategies through which non-Roma appropriate, perform, and consume Balkan Gypsy music. Noting that Roma are rarely in charge of their own representations, I illus- trate how the image of the fantasy Balkan Gypsy has been created, and who participates in and who benefits from the popularization of Gypsy arts. I focus on DJs and club culture in western Europe and North America and tie my analysis to performative displays of European multiculturalism. The global musical landscape of Balkan Romani music has expanded dramati- cally in the last two decades. While in the early 1990s it was admired by a small group of fans, by 2002 Time magazine’s music section proclaimed “Roma Rule” (Purvis 2002: 70–71) and in 2007 Newsweek wrote “The World Embraces Gyp- sy Culture” (Brownell, Haq 2007). In 2006 Balkan Romani music exploded on the Borat movie soundtrack, and today young people dance to Balkan Gyp- sy remixes played by DJs in cites such as New York, San Francisco, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Melbourne. Before we celebrate too glibly I suggest we investigate representational and perform- ance issues, as well as the flow of international capital and media attention.1 1 Fieldwork took place in Romani communities in Bulgaria, Macedonia and New York (1988–2011); in New York and San Francisco clubs and festivals (2005–2011); and in Lon- don, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Vienna, and Lisbon clubs (2011, funded by the Oregon Humanities Center and by the Guggenheim Foundation). This article was initially presented as a keynote lecture at the conference “Southeast European (Post) Modernities,” International Association for Southeast European Anthropology, Regens- 16 Carol Silverman Elsewhere I have underlined the paradox that Roma are loved for their music yet hated as people (Silverman 2007a). These twin poles of admiration in the arts and marginalization in social life are a historic pattern, yet their recent manifestation in the realm of world music reveals significant hierarchies. This article builds on my earlier work on musicians in their own communities (Sil- verman 2012) to explore the postsocialist globalization of Balkan Gypsy music in commercial world music markets by relating its consumption and production to issues of representation. Referencing debates about how collaborations and hybridity may be liberating and/or exploitative, I focus on one site of global Gypsy music, the club scene in western Europe, to explore the strategies through which non-Roma perform and appropriate Gypsy music. Noting that Roma are rarely in charge of their own representations (Hancock 1997),2 I investigate how the image and sound of the fantasy Gypsy is created, and who participates in and who benefits from the popularization of Gypsy music. This project has current resonance: a rising tide of xenophobia and anti-Gypsyism (under the rubric of nationalism and pop- ulism) is sweeping Europe precisely at the time that Gypsy music has become a “hot” commodity. Who is collaborating with and appropriating from whom, and how are power relationships implicated in these exchanges? Roma Linguistic evidence shows that Roma migrated westward from northwest India and reached the Balkans by the fourteenth century and western Europe a century later. Initial curiosity about Roma by Europeans quickly gave way to discrimination, a legacy that has continued until today (Hancock 1987, 2002).3 As burg, Germany, April 2011. Portions of this article are expanded from parts of Silverman 2012. 2 However, in Romania, Roma control the manele (folk/pop) industry and some artists make huge sums of money (Radulescu 2004). On the other hand, the pop/folk industry in the rest of the southern Balkans tends to be controlled by non-Roma; a number of Roma have become stars in this industry. I do not focus on pop/folk in this article because it is not the most globalized form of Balkan Gypsy music; for analysis of the role of Roma in Bulgarian pop/folk, see Silverman 2012, chapter 9. 3 In the southern Romanian principalities Roma were slaves from the fourteenth to the nine- teenth centuries. Despite their small numbers, Roma inspired fear and mistrust and were expelled from virtually every western European territory. Bounties were paid for their cap- ture and repressive measures included confiscation of property and children, forced labor, prison sentences, whipping, branding, etc. Assimilation was attempted in the eighteenth century in the Austro-Hungarian Empire by forcibly removing children from their parents Gypsy Music, Hybridity and Appropriation 17 Europe’s largest ethnic minority (10–12 million), Roma are socially, economi- cally, and politically marginalized in virtually all arenas of society. In the postsocialist period, harassment and violence towards the Roma of Eastern Europe have increased, along with marginalization and poverty. They have a low stand- ard of living in every country, with unemployment reaching 80 percent in some regions. Balkan Roma face inferior and segregated housing and education, including tracking of children into special schools for the disabled. Poor health conditions, specifically higher infant mortality and morbidity, shorter life expectancy, and higher frequency of chronic diseases all plague Roma. Discrimination is wide- spread in employment and the legal system, and even educated people routine- ly express disdain for Gypsies. Hate speech and racial profiling are common in the media. Perhaps most troubling are the hundreds of incidences of physical violence against Roma perpetrated by ordinary citizens and also by the police.4 According to The Economist, Roma remain at the “Bottom of the Heap” (2008: 35). Observers have shown that rather than being the purview of extrem- ists, anti-immigrant and anti-Romani sentiment is becoming more mainstream. For example, in 2008, the Italian government started to fingerprint all Gypsies living in camps in an effort to crack down on crime; in 2010, the French government deported Romani European Union citizens back to Bulgaria and Ro- and outlawing nomadism, traditional occupations and Romani language, music, and dress; similar legislation was enacted in Spain after 1499 (Fraser 1992; Petrova 2003). In the Bal- kans, the policy of the Ottoman Empire towards Roma was, in general, more lenient than state policy in Western Europe, at least from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries (Ma- rushiakova, Popov 2000). Perhaps the most tragic period of Romani history was World War II when over 500 000 Roma were murdered (Hancock 2002). The communist regimes in Eastern Europe defined Roma as a social problem. They were targeted for integration into the planned economy, forced to give up their traditional occupations, and assigned to the lowest skilled and lowest paid state jobs (e. g., street cleaners). Specific policies varied by country and by decade, e. g., forced sterilization in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. No- madic Roma were forcibly settled, settled Roma were forcibly moved, and aspects of their culture, such as music, were prohibited. 4 For detailed information on these topics see the World Bank Reports by Ringold 2000; Rin- gold et al. 2004; and Revenga et al. 2002; and various issues of Roma Rights, the journal of the European Roma Rights Centre (http://www.errc.org). The European Roma Rights Centre submitted the following statement to the United Nations Committee on the Elimina- tion of Racial Discrimination: “Roma remain to date the most persecuted people of Europe. Almost everywhere, their fundamental human rights are threatened. Disturbing cases of racist violence targeting Roma have occurred in recent years. Discrimination against Roma in employment, education, health care, and administrative and other services is common in many societies. Hate speech against Roma, also prevalent, deepens the negative stere- otypes which pervade European public opinion” (ERRC 2002: 5). 18 Carol Silverman mania; in 2010 right-wing militias patrolled Hungarian villages against Gyp- sies; and in 2011, Bulgarian anti-Gypsy demonstrations erupted into violence. All over Europe, nationalist parties are growing and the population is becoming more polarized. On the other hand, since 1989, Balkan Gypsy music has found a secure place in Western European and American world music festivals, dance clubs, and on CDs, DVDs and YouTube. Part of the appeal comes from promoters (and sometimes Roma themselves, see Silverman 2012) who market the exoticism of Gypsies. The positive yet dangerous coding of Romani otherness hinges on their historical romanticization by non-Roma as free souls (outside the rules and boundaries of European society), their association with the arts, especially music and the occult, and their proximity to nature and sexuality. Using Said’s con- cept, we can claim that Roma are “orientalized” and exoticized (1978). Todorova, discussing whether the Balkans are

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