Anyone knows about Balkan music more than Goran Bregovic and DJ S.hantel? We know that Bregovic is a great composer and S.Hantel is good at entertertaing people with a disco style folk music in Balkan flavour. But what about popular Balkan folk genres of Manele from Romania, Chalga from Bulgaria and Turbo-folk from Former Yugoslavia? In this blog, you will find some funny information on Manele which is a very popular musical genre in Romania and Moldova in where the official language is Romanian.
In Balkan music and Middle Eastern music, pop folk music refers to a mix of pop, folk, ethnic and dance music in which the dominant rhytms are of Oriental and/or Gypsy music origin. Along with the brother genres Bulgaria’ s Chalga and Serbia’s Turbo-folk, Manele is a genre that is absolutely to be considered through this definition for Balkan pop-folk music. But how come Gypsy and Oriental rhtyms could be dominant in a Balkan pop music genre?
Ottoman Empire lying on the today’s Balkans, Middle East, Caucasia and North Africa territories had a great influence on the subcultural formations of the countries at those regions. As well as Turkey having Ottoman’s cultural heritage, Ottoman Empire and Turkey are not totally oriental and Middle-Eastern in their folks. They have a rich cultural mix of both east and west or neither (means totaly different than both) but the effect of Islam religion on a wider Ottoman area (Middle East, North Africa) had a very considerable impact on the empire’s overall culture and of course its music. Oriental samples of Balkan pop-folk genres are mainly derived from this strong impact. Also today’s popular Turkish music genre Arabesque (Arabesk) is rooted from that influence.
Other than music, Ottoman influence in Romania is still alive also in the contemporary Romanian language. According to a Romanian linguistic academician’s study, in Romanian language, there are approximately 3000 words similar to Turkish. Kapak(capac), masa(masa), kamyon(camion), çay(ceai), çorba(ciorba), düşman (duşman), haydi(haide) are just some astonishing samples of them. Although, Romania and Bulgaria are the recent members of EU, this subcultural fact and their economic profile make those countries easily distinctive from the EU in terms of its basic cultural and economical patterns.
There are many internet based anti-manele forum groups which are strictly against manele music. Members of those forums generally tell that manele music symbolises degenerated cultural habits thanks to its inartistic fashion, foolish lyrics with faulty grammar usage and unproductive, repeated melodies. It is true that Manele song lyrics often use similar low content arguments such as “I would like to beat my enemies, I am rich and have the hottest girl with me”.
In addition to this, it is claimed that Manele music is not a part of Romanian culture and does not even belong to Romania because of its foreign (gypsy and oriental) roots. It is also told that Manele Music is only the representative music of the gypsies (tigane in Romanian) in the country. In Romania, officially 2,5 % of the population is formed by gypsies. However, it is said that in real, unofficial gypsy population is 7 % (over 1.5 million) of the country. This unofficial estimation makes Romania hosting the most populous Gypsy community all around the world. Gypsies in Romania and other Balkan States are also called Romani whose ancestors are assumed to come from Egypt and India.
On the other hand, there are hundreds of Manele singers and it seems that today Manele music is not only owned by Gypsy listeners and performers. An important number of singers, musicians and fans of Manele are Gypsies but it is also clear that there are many people in Romania involved in this Music as a listener or performer, but they are not Gypsies at all in their origin, they are white caucasians.
By the upper-middle or high income class and intellectual people of Romania, Manele is often critised as an unwanted (voiced even to be banned) genre representing a sub-culture in lower profile social status in terms of purchasing power and education level. However the reality is far different in Romania rather the elitists see. Romania is a fresh EU member country holding a 7700 USD nominal GDP(Gross Domestic Product) per capita which is just higher from the other youngest EU member Bulgaria and already lower from non-EU Balkan state Turkey. Many of the Romanian people live in rural rather than the cities due to the low industrialization. Thus, banning of Manele may cause to a desperate unrepresentativeness of an important number of people (Gypsies and low-income profile) in the country.
Beside this, it is funny to see that those younger people who are against manele, may favour Romanian pop music and hip-hop/rap with degenerated contents. Other than solid synthesizers employment with computer programmed voices in Manele, Pop,Disco, hip-hop and rap styles; Manele bands are used to play talent based instruments such as clarinet and accordeon. Hence, together with an oriental blend, rhytm and melody richness in Manele is felt easier compare to the other mentioned genres. Also many of those young generation claiming that Manele is not Romanian, may listen to rock music rooted from USA and Britain. If someone who is against Manele emphasizes that Phoenix which is a succesfull Romanian folk-rock band actively performing starting from 70’s and Gheorghe Zamfir who is the best known pan-flutist around the world, they would be all right. For sure, Manele is much more Romanian and much more local. As an example to this, calling manele bands for performing on a traditional wedding ceremony is very commonly seen manner in Romania.
Anyway, this is somehow a part of Romania picture and its popular culture. Certain measurement of the popularity of Manele is no longer available after the easy access of downloading music through the internet services. However, the existance of TV Music channels such as Taraf TV, Mynele TV, Favorit TV, Etno TV, Oglinda TV(OTV) and Atomic TV which are broadcasting Manele videoclips, is a pure indicator to comprehend the dimensions of Manele’s popularity in the country. From those, Taraf TV and Mynele TV only focuses on Manele.
One other accusation on manele is plagiarism. It is often encountered that Romanian manele singers use former melodies of similar musical genres of the neighbour countries such as Yugoslavia’s Turbo-folk, Bulgarian’s Chalga, Turkish Pop and even finally Arabesque. For instance, Brandy who is one of the most popular manele singers had used Turkish Arabesque and Fantasy (a genre mixed of pop, Turkish Folk and Arabesque) songs several times. At the manele videoclipuri part, you will be able to find the videoclip of one of the copy-paste Brandy songs “le doresc".
A typical manele videoclip can be financed by almost 500-600 USD. Those videoclips are created in small dance/night clubs hired for a few hours and mostly owned by one of the friends of the band members. Some of the manele videoclips are recorded in a package form that means up to 7-8 videoclips of different manele singers are casted in order during a whole day while the dancer girls and the location used never change. Most of the manele videoclips are broadcasted in poor techniques by a bit developed form of a hand camera. May be, in order to minimise the cameraman cost, one of the brothers of the crew holds the camera. Therefore, the highest cost effect in a manele videoclip are dancer girls (usually 3 to 5 but sometimes up to 10 girls) who are hired for 10-15 USD per clip. They are called to wear their own most provocative dress before coming. All these may be interpreted as a result of economic conditions or the lack of broadcasting school in the country, but in neighbour Bulgaria, pop-folk genre Chalga’s videoclips are produced in comparatively higher techniques. The reason of the poor production quality is production companies. Big production companies usually refuse to contract with a manele singer. In Romania, many Manele albums are released by underground productions owned by one singer or group of manele singers.
For sure, employment of dancers in traditional belly dance costumes might make the oriental atmosphere heavier but in a a typical Manele videoclip, instead of traditional belly dancer costume, manele dancers wear low-cut jean skirts and other hot dress like stuff. Needless to say, of course a regular Romanian woman do not dress in public like those manele dancers wear in a videoclip but as I travelled many European cities, I can say that the overall dress style in Romania is more relax and provocative compare to the other parts, especially the western of Europe.
Do not be glazed if you see a 14 years old manele singer cartoonised as a mafioso character in a +16 videoclip (see videoclip of Alexx-Don Genove-Susanu). There are several manele singers who have albums under 18 years old.
Stage name of the manele performers are also funny. A Manele singer named Romeo Fantastik has performed a replica (“Goale”) of summer hit song “Dale Don Dale”. Watch his videoclip Goale and see how fantastic his hair and dress styles are. Also Manele music producers give the stage names according to the singers’ physical appearance and origin (either city or country) such as Catalin Arabu, Dan Arabu, Brazilianu, Jean de la Craiova, Dan Armeanca and Petrica Americanu.
Petrica Americanu has probably the worst voice I have ever heard. The silly thing with him is that most probably he is not American but in his songs, he tells that America is the best place to live. When I was in L.A, U.S.A, I had to share a hostel room with a Romanian guy. He was sleeping nearby an American flag purchased by himself while he had a Che Guevera tattoo on his arm. We could only expect this guy to be in origin of one of the former Eastern Bloc countries where the people had the desire of a capitalist environment during the close cold war times while they were not able to access the capital world’s productions. At the videoclipuri manele part of this blog, you will be able to watch Petrica Americanu’s funny videoclip “e cald afara (summer time)” in which Petrica covers his body with an American flag. Of course, I haven’t astonished, when I first saw the videoclip.
The absolute hero (but mine is Sandu Ciorba) of Manele is Nicolae Guta who is 1.60cm tall and at least 95 kgs. He never cuts his charismatic moustache (unfortunately he’ve cut it at the end). Do not miss Guta's videoclip “E Scris Undeva” which also covers an unofficial contest between manele dancer girls to touch this handsome guy’s hands. Also his wife Nicoleta Guta is a manele singer and I wonder how she felt after this videoclip. You will be able to see Sandu Ciorba's, Nicoleta Guta's and Nicolae Guta's photos together in an album cover at the top of this article.
Other well-known manele singer Adrian Copilul Minune (aka Adi de Vito) is more productive compare to Guta. He composed hundreds of Manele songs many with love theme. He is able to play several music instruments such as accordeon and piano. Watch his videoclip “Trandafirul de la Tine” a love song singing with bombshell Simona Sensual and imagine how Simona could be an ideal lover for Adrian Minune.
Although the popularization in their origin countries, Balkan pop-folk genres still remain local. There are of course some exceptions e.g. recently boomed Balkan hit “Ce la Amsterdam”, a song by former manele singer Costi Ionita. Costi Ionita does a mixed music and he recently showed himself in a Pop-Disco hit while he is already known as a manele singer(also he is a shareholder of Mynele TV). On the other hand, rhytms and melodies of those genres are very familiar sometimes, because plagiarism of a local hit song is unfortunately very common approach among Balkan pop-folk music composers and performers. Turkish gay singer Fatih Urek has recently reissued Costi Ionita’s hit “Ce La Amsterdam” in Turkish.
The limited popularization of Manele throughout the country is moved by Romanian emigrants. For instance, in Turkey, Manele videoclip and MP3 CD’s could be heard and purchased on the streets and some small stores of Laleli where is known as Red Light zone of Istanbul. Manele is just popular in Turkey among the Romanians who live and work in İstanbul (and most probably in Laleli). Similar to Manele music, Chalga which is Bulgarian’s pop-folk music is also known in a smaller habitat among the Bulgaria immigrants of Turkey. However, a couple years ago, Ciguli with his hit Chalga style song “Binnaz” was boomed in Turkey. Althogh his excellence at playing accordeon, he had been critised for performing a garbage popular music style by Turkish media. This song may easily remind well known manelistor Florin Salam’s hit, “La inima m-ai ars”.
There is a brotherhood between some hip-hop singers and manelistors on some records and this partnership produces a new subgenre of manele which is more far from the oriental manele style. Susanu (aka Play AJ) and Casanova (aka Fero) are the well known manele singers who mix up hip-hop and Manele together. Hip-hop singers Don Genove and Mr.Juve collaborated many times with Manele singers. Also rather than oriental style, some manele singers such as Stana Izbasa and Liviu Mititelu use more folkloric theme under pop and folk instrumentation background. The distinguishing feature of this more folkloric style is the employment of saxophone.
At the videclipuri manele part (at the right) of this blog, you will be able to find some sample manele videoclips. Especially for men, it could be a hard choice to watch Manele videoclips (videoclipuri in Romanian) as a normal music video because it is possible to react like when you are watching a Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat or Ali G.) movie or a regular Tinto Brass movie (Snack Bar Budapest) at the same time. Anyway somehow, somewhat we like manele music and its videoclips.
