35 f
boom, boom. The people like it. Because it is nice for the ears. You can still listen to it. There are melodies and harmonies – but it’s fast, like punk.”
For the time being Berlin has established itself as an important market place for East European, Balkan and Romanian Roma music. There are countless Balkan parties in Berlin nightclubs, some well-known Balkan DJs and three important music labels that specialise in the music of the Balkans and Balkan Roma.
Asphalt Tango is one such label which specialises in the music of Romanian Roma and was launched when the label’s two founders Henry Ernst and Helmut Neumann, two Romanian afi- cionados from Leipzig discovered and then went on to produce and manage Romanian Roma brass superstars Fanfare Ciocarlia.
“It’s a success story,” says Henry Ernst. “Balkan music and Romanian music in particular has had worldwide success. In the time being it’s nothing new. It’s an accepted style of music. The bands are in the position to fill up symphony halls and stadiums. And I think it has become something like a standard Kulturgut in Germany.”
It makes sense, says Ernst, that Berlin and Germany should become important jumping off points for Romanian Roma music.
I
“Germany lies, from a geographical standpoint in the mid- dle,” says Ernst, “and if you are in the middle there is a view to the West and there’s a view to the East. And when you consider Berlin, then Berlin lies further in the East, whether that be in ref- erence to its culture or its familiarity with foreign cultures. Even though the opposite is often suggested in the media, still there is a mutual coexistence.”
t’s a Wednesday night in Shangl Hangl, a music café in Neukölln, popular with Roma musicians. One of the musi- cians from Fanfara Kalashnikov is celebrating his birthday. The men wear crisp, white shirts, have flashy belt-buckles and spiky, gelled hair. The women wear slinky black dresses and a lot of jewellery. Some don’t speak a word of German. A band plays Romanian songs. The Roma dance, lifting their hands in the air, oriental fashion, and yelling, while Germans and other gadjos look on in wonder and amusement.
Cristian is also here. He is complaining. The previous night he slept at a Romanian musician friend’s and his kids stole his watch from his hand while he was sleeping. Sergiu comes up and offers a glass of whisky. Asked if he is happy to be in Berlin and Germany, he says “our music is more successful here and more commercially viable here than in Romania and that is the reason why we have chosen not to stay in Romania. Berlin is our city. They love us here.”
The party continues till two in the morning. It is one of the liveliest celebrations of the year, and it, together with all of the new Romanian and Bulgarian and Balkan music cafés and clubs springing up in Neukölln and Kreuzberg, are indications that the Balkan Roma are gaining a foothold in this city, and the more curi- ous gadjos who wander into places like this, the more Roma Balkan music will spread into Berlin’s musical mainstream. Berlin hears the sound of the Balkan Roma and it likes what it hears.
www.myspace.com/fanfarakalashnikov www.asphalt-tango.de
Fanfare Ciocarlia F
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