“AT THE END OF THE WORLD”

Author: Evan Milton, Cape Town, South Africa
Place: Cape Argus Magazine
Date: May 2009

Robert Soko fled war-ravaged Bosnia for Berlin and started a series of emigre parties that has grown into the ‘BalkanBeats’ phenomenon that has swept the underground globe - and helped birth South Africa’s own ‘Balkanology’.

Robert Soko was raised in the central Bosnian city of Zenica before fleeing the war-ravaged country in 1990. He moved to Berlin and soon took over the Kreuzberg Arcanoa punk bar to host parties for his Yugoslav friends, playing “Yugo rock” and Western styles like punk, new wave and ska, but celebrating socialist holidays like Worker’s Day, Women’s Day and Tito’s birthday. In the face of rising Balkan nationalism, the parties drew a crowd who revelled in the equal mix of irony and nostalgia, and began to reach beyond the refugee community. Then, after the films of Emir Kusturica and the work of Bosnian composer Goran Bregovic revamped an interest in Balkan and gypsy melodies, Soko rediscovered his own interest in gypsy music and the traditional music of his Balkan homeland.

The young DJ started mixing the music of east and west and his audience expanded, outgrowing the Arcanoa, moving to the legendary Mudd Club and then growing the Balkan Beats events to London, Paris, New York and beyond. It was a heady mix of gypsy brass, Middle Eastern influences, Western rock, ska and punk, and electronic beats, and has converted bystanders to dedicated revellers in areas as far flung as Los Angeles and Melbourne. And now, with residencies in Berlin, Paris, London and Budapest, Robert Soko brings “Balkan Beats” to South Africa’s own “Balkanology”.

So, what’s the magic ingredient that sees the Soko’s brand of Balkan Beats appeal so widely - a phenomenon also evidenced in the Mother City, where a unique legion of discerning party-goers pool their pennies, hire in the babysitters or forego the city’s usual breakbeat or rock offerings for an evening of what was once dubbed “gypsy punk”? At the level of sociology and ethnomusicology, it is a mixture of Gypsy, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Romanian melodies with rock and electronic rhythms. But it is also far more. “The music is simple; very dance-oriented and very seductive. It is hot-tempered, passionate - and there is something in it which is crazy,” says Soko from Berlin where, appropriately enough, he is sitting having a coffee. “The music is happy and sad at the same time, it is the insanity of being happy despite what is around you, and looking for the good things, like a good drink or a good party.”

Although the music has its origins across the Balkan region, not least being Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was in the city of Berlin that the Balkan Beats first took root. Why there? “Berlin is located exactly on the border between east and west - it was a unique city being divided, with two faces and two exteriors between Eastern Europe and Western Europe,” says Soko.
“That’s one reason, but also Berlin is a big city with a huge community of artists and there are a lot of people who are open minded… Or, maybe, not even open-minded, but willing to experience other cultures, and Berliners are known for being creative. Another reason was that, during the war in 1990, thousands of refugees from the former Yugoslavia came here, running away from the war, and bringing their culture and their music.
All this created a new scene. It started small, with maybe fifty people gathered together in a bar, listening to the music. Then, step by step, it attracted the attention of Germans and other Berliners, wherever they might come from. Everyone heard about the bad news and the bad things from the Balkan region; but now there was another situation - music from the Balkans, and people who wanted to dance to it.”

Soko is quick to point out that it is not only the Western and Eastern influence which underpins the rich melange that creates the music of the Balkan Beats parties. “Not to be forgotten is the Asian influence,” he explains. “There is a comparison between this music and Latin music from South America, which is also happy, but in different ways, and sad, but in different ways. The big difference is the influences from the Middle East, like the Asian and Oriental styles, and the Jewish music from Israel, too. These clash together and are melting together into what we call the Balkan mixture: East, West, Oriental, Jewish, Slavic - the baby of these is called BalkanBeats.”

What can the South African “Balkanology” faithful expect from the Robert Soko set?
“I will do what I always do,” he smiles, “I play a few hours of danceable tracks that I have seen move the crowds from London to Scandinavia and we will have a drink and we will dance. People hear the BalkanBeat and they move their asses to it - I have seen it all over, and this is why these parties are growing all over the world. Balkan Beat has parties in Budapest, Hungary, Paris, Amsterdam and London and, this year, I have been invited to Brazil to look at setting something up there.”

As for his African excursion, Soko is disarmingly - and charmingly - forthright: “I am really curious to see how it looks like over there. As soon as I tell someone that I am going, their eyes go big, ‘Wow’ and ‘Amazing’ and ‘What will it be like?’ i don’t know if it is polite to say this, but from my perspective in Berlin, it is like i have been invited to the bottom of the world.
I am coming to the end of the world to play Balkan music, and i think that is a unique experience.”