AlenThin stumbles upon #3: Shukar Collective

"AlenThin stumbles upon" is a series of posts where I'm presenting people who inspire me through their work or simply by their way of living, be it musicians, artists of any sort or just amazing human beings.

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Shukar Collective - "The fine collective"

screenshot source

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Napoleon, Tamango and Clasic, traditional rroma singers and founders of Shukar (from the romanes word "șucar" meaning fine or beautiful) blended with a newer generation of musicians Dj Vasile, Dan Handrabur (Dreamdoktor), Cristi Stanciu (Matze) and Vlaicu Golcea gave birth to the amazing Shukar Collective.

An unique blend of singing, shouting, and instruments such as spoons, wooden barrels, stones or darabouka with heavy bass lines, deep synths and other electronic instruments are the secret to their their distinctive, raw and very emotional sound.

Speaking of emotional, this track Oh, Girl... takes you back to Tamango's native sound and his background , featuring a video of him and his family before his passing in 2012.

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Not only Tamango but all the other members of the Collective have amazing backgrounds, so I truly recommend checking them out individually.

They played at various European festivals and, in 2010, Shukar Collective was the subject of an HBO documentary, which I haven't had the opportunity to watch.

Among the little information they previously shared on the background of their collaboration, the lives of the two generations of artists began to intertwine, since the rroma singers lived 40km out of Bucharest, the younger artists had to take turns helping them out and driving them around, so that they could appear on TV, do a radio jingle or play at a club. They also bought one rroma singer a TV and even a horse.

While the project lasted 2 albums were made, the first one was "Urban Gypsy" released in 2005 and the second one was "Rromatek" released in 2007.

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I'll leave here two more amazing tracks and links to their vimeo channel and facebook page.

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AlenThin stumbles upon:
#1 Laraaji
#2 Legowelt

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Much love,
AlenThin.