Underground Folklore: from a musical genre to a new cultural consciousness

June 2014

Dissertation

Underground Folklore: from a musical genre to a new cultural consciousness?

Author: Răzvan – George Galoș

Main Supervisor: Dr. Fabio Cleto Università degli Studi di Bergamo Support Supervisor: Dr. Claudia Kozak Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos

Răzvan – George Galoș

Dissertation

June 2014

Declaration

I Răzvan – George Galoș hereby certify that this dissertation, which is 18,011 words in length, has been written by me, that it is a record of work carried out by me, and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. All sentences or passages quoted in this dissertation from other people’s work (with or without trivial changes) have been placed within quotation marks, and specifically acknowledged by reference to author, work and page. I understand that plagiarism – the unacknowledged use of such passages – will be considered grounds for failure in this dissertation and, if serious, in the degree programme as a whole. I also affirm that, with the exception of the specific acknowledgements, these answers are entirely my own work. Signature of candidate ……………………

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Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 4 1.

The sound of underground folklore ................................................................................ 5 1.1.

Folklore as inspiration ................................................................................................. 7

1.2.

Dolhasca, an archaic place......................................................................................... 11

1.3.

From colinde to hip-hop ............................................................................................ 13

1.4.

The sound of childhood ............................................................................................. 18

2.

From identity crisis to national unity ............................................................................ 20

3.

When in ’89 ...................................................................................................................... 29

4.

The thin line between underground and mainstream ................................................. 34

5.

Nostalgia between urban and rural ............................................................................... 39

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 43 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 45

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Abstract

The focus of this dissertation is to set the basis for the study of a musical genre referred to as “underground folklore”. The term was coined by Romanian hip-hop band Subcarpați in 2012 and used as title for their second album. Underground folklore is also a good description for the style of the band, a hybrid between modern genres such as hip-hop and Romanian folklore motifs. The first chapter analyses the sound of underground folklore, in order to make room for questions regarding the reasons for its creation. The hypothesis is that the musical genre was born as a result of an equation with many variables, the most important ones being represented by concepts such as identity and nostalgia, which shall be discussed throughout the study. The context around the creation of underground folklore will also be defined as being related to Romania’s recent history and to the underground hip-hop sphere of the city of Bucharest. Ultimately, the analysis will show that underground folklore is a good example in describing Romanian society nowadays, especially regarding the dual relationship between city and countryside, new and old, modern and traditional. This dual relationship can be also observed as the cultural heritage of at least one generation. The primary sources of the study will be the songs of Subcarpați, both instrumentally and lyrically, alongside interviews and documentaries in which the members of the band are the protagonists.

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1.

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The sound of underground folklore

‘Folcloru-i oxigen pentru un popor astmatic’ Folklore is oxygen for an asthmatic people (Subcarpati, Balada Romanului, 2012)

This chapter analyses the construction of a musical genre, which has been referred to as “underground folklore” (in Romanian underground folclor), a combination between old and new, between traditional and modern, born in the city of Bucharest, but inspired by a tradition that has survived throughout the centuries, resembling an archaic way of life that can still be found in the Romanian countryside. Before any other considerations it is important to clarify that the present study is not focused whatsoever on concepts such as “protochronism” – term used to ascribe an idealized past to a country as a whole, ‘which came to the fore in the 1970s’ in Romania and ‘had affinities to earlier traditionalist interpretations of national development and, later, to Ceausescu's increasingly nationalist utterances’, emphasizing ‘the unique and pioneering character of Romanian culture’ (Hitchins, 1992, p. 1082). Although the results of such concepts could easily be situated in the sphere of ridiculousness, Romanian culture, and folklore especially, should be by no means seen with discomfiture. The analysis of Romanian rural tradition, although it may seem like an approach to localness, should not be observed in terms of the distinguishness that sometimes folklore proudly acclaims and hardly defends, but purely as an inspirational factor that influenced the expressivity of a new art form such as underground folklore. The concept of underground folklore was introduced in 2012 by the Romanian hiphop band Subcarpați, which was established in 2010 and was described by The Guardian as ‘an explosive mixture of old and new’, ‘an eclectic combination that brings together melancholy Romanian folk songs, Romanian unity songs, traditional instruments and the rhythms of trip-hop, dubstep, hip-hop and dancehall’ (The Guardian, 2012). Underground Folclor is also the title of Subcarpați’s second album and it appears to be a good description for the style of the band, which at the beginning was hard to define; constructions such as

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“etno” or “neofolk” used by the media to name a new way to assimilate and produce folklore were seen with scepticism by the members of the band. Although the construction underground folklore was born two years after the band was formed, it provides a good description for the early works, as well as a pattern that will be hard not to follow, at least in the near future. In this chapter the focus will be on the sound of underground folklore, with particular attention given to the Romanian rural motifs and the way the poetics of hip-hop relate to them. The first part will consist in a presentation of the use of folklore musical motifs throughout various stages of Romanian music. Afterwards, a glimpse at some of the local traditions still preserved will be important in explaining the influence of Romanian folklore productions on underground folklore. Ultimately, a parallel and coalescence between traditional folklore music and hip-hop will be necessary in order to define the architecture and the sound of the underground folklore. The objective of the present study is not to engage in an in-depth analysis of Romanian folklore music, but to prove its necessity in terms of social and cultural identity disruptions – of course, references to particular folklore productions will be made, in order to define the subject at hand, a subject very little discussed from a critical point of view, a factor that represents a big challenge considering the almost limitless possible approaches. Thus, in order to avoid a massive confusion in the reader’s perception, the present chapter will try to answer the question “what is underground folklore?”, while the subsequent will deal with more difficult questions such as “why?” or “where to?”. One could assimilate the process of writing to the process of recording a song, based on multitracking (an overlapping of channels, where each one corresponds to a different instrument), but with ideas instead of sounds. Of course, the simple overlapping of two or more channels during the recording and production of a song is not enough to achieve a good sound. In the same way, the present study needs a decent amount of mixing and masterizing, in order to attribute the right place and level (of importance) to every idea, which just like an instrument or a sound, has a defined role in relation to the spatiality and general vibe of the final result. Hopefully at least the “rhythmic” part will sound decently.

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1.1.

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Folklore as inspiration

Asked about his relationship with folklore, Andrei Marius Alexe, also known as Bean MC (which I shall refer to as “Bean” throughout the study), the founder of the Subcarpați project, replied that his connection to Romanian tradition is ‘very personal’ and ‘can be traced to his childhood, when he used to spend his summer breaks in the countryside, in Dolhasca, Moldova’ (Alexe, 2012). ‘My grandmother introduced me to folklore music’ - Bean states ‘she was always asking me to turn down the volume of my rap tapes, to show some respect and listen to our music’ (Alexe, 2012). Bean affirms that he took advantage of the lack of an authentic sound and the lack of promotion of folklore in current Romanian music, by searching ‘the lost sound’, the sound he listened to ‘long ago’ in Dolhasca, very different from the almost manufactured folklore he used to hear on television (Alexe, 2012). Regarding the commercialized version of folklore, born during the Communist regime and still representative for the majority of the Romanian population, ethnomusicologist Speranta Radulescu remembers her ‘disdain and disgust’ towards this promoted genre, manufactured in the image of the Romanian communist society: ‘planned from the “centre”’ (reference to the communist regime), ‘ideologically conformist, hopelessly optimistic, noisy, artificial, false’ (Radulescu, 1997, p. 8). She continues by explaining that It was not within our reach to repel the power of the Communists, who forced us to swallow it; but we did allow ourselves to reject its musical insignia, availing ourselves of the current opinion that music is divorced from any ideological connotations (Radulescu, 1997, p. 8)

However, Speranta Radulescu remembers that at the Conservatory of Bucharest she discovered that folklore was in fact ‘a real support and source of inspiration for the national school of composition’, and although she had ‘no opportunity to hear this magnificent music live’, she read in ‘the old collections’ melodies that were used in ‘remarkable compositions, by Georges Enesco, Constantin Silvestri, Teodor Rogalski, Mihail Jora and other monstres sacrés’ (Radulescu, 1997, p. 8). The commercialized version of folklore from the “Golden Age” (construction that refers to the Romanian communist regime) is still very successful, a success that can be observed especially in the variety of specialized television channels that have an uninterrupted schedule of broadcasting. For an “untrained” viewer the sentiment of unpleasant surprise, when stumbling upon such a channel, is more than natural. What is important, though, is that folklore was and still remains a source of inspiration

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for Romanian music, from classical to pop, from rock to underground music. The individual’s need to express oneself through the search of tradition could be considered a process that occurs in moments of loss of identity, an idea that will be discussed later on. During the communist era, the main example of integration of folklore motifs appropriated in a different and decent way was the band Phoenix, also known as Transsylvania Phoenix. At the beginning of the seventies, the band adopted a style referred to as etno-rock, in a moment when censorship began to ban the majority of Romania’s rock bands. Phoenix created a unique sound, using almost ‘primitive’ motifs, medieval tales combined with rock, the musical genre ‘assumed as modernity’ at the time (Breazu, 2010). The band remained in people’s hearts, due to a rare instrumental virtuosity and due to the metaphorical character of their anti-regime lyrics. The majority of the members managed to escape to West Germany in the late seventies and returned after the fall of Ceausescu’s regime. Other rock bands tried to assimilate folklore in those times, such as Sincron, an attempt that led to an interesting combination between riffs that resembled the ones made by The Beatles and traditional lyrics. Another project, Sfinx, combined psychedelic rock and ancient Dacian mythology, a quite different approach and one that distances itself a little from the folklore background analyzed in the present study. Just as rock used to represent the main genre that ruled the seventies and the eighties, hip-hop started a worldwide domination in the mid 90’s, maybe symbolically after Kurt Cobain’s death. In both cases, the dominant genre was locally assimilated, but still remained dominant. Subcarpați, just like Phoenix, do not play folklore music exclusively. Hybrid products were born in both cases, but in Phoenix’s case the choice to incorporate folklore is not as clear as in the context of Subcarpați. The storytelling feature of hip-hop eases the understanding of why folklore was chosen as a source of inspiration, just by taking a glimpse at the lyrics (such examples will constantly be used throughout the study). The choice of Subcarpați for the present analysis is not arbitrary. In addition to being the first band after Phoenix that used folklore motifs that do not sound like monophonic cellular ringtones (the way the dance-folk attempts of the 1990s sounded like), the band represents an oasis of interest, not only in terms of sound, but also regarding aspects such as identity, generation, and nostalgia – concepts that will be developed in the second part of the study. In order to trace the band’s choice of folklore as support, an analysis of the lyrics of

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the song “Lăutar de București” (Lăutar1 from Bucharest), from the first album entitled Subcarpați, could be appropriate. The translation is my own (just as any text from Romanian used in the present study) and the rhyme was sacrificed in favour of the content. Mi s-a pus pata într-o seară Să ascult ce-asculta bunica la țară odinioară Și-am rămas pe loc săgetat Am știut din start ce trebuie sa fac Muzica m-a inspirat Și-am început să fac ca flăcăii De parcă-am repetat ani întregi Folclor și căntecul ploii Și dacă tot meșteresc muzică pe PC M-am gândit că poate sintetizez cântarea țării. Am unificat idei ce aveam în cap Adică trip'u de la țară și vreo câțiva ani de rap Să știi că ăsta nu-i cenaclu Nu ți-o dau de la înalțime Dar cum m-a lovit poate te lovește și pe tine.

One night I was stuck on listening to what my grandma Used to listen to in the countryside back in the day I remained still like a stone I instantly knew what I had to do Music inspired me I started to behave like the lads Like I had been repeating for years Folklore and the song of the rain And since I already craft music on the PC, I thought I could maybe synthesize the melody of the country I united ideas that I had in mind That is the trip from the countryside and a few years of rap Keep in mind that this is not a literary circle It’s not coming from up above But it could hit you just like it hit me (Subcarpati, Lăutar de București, 2010)

The translation seems largely unintelligible until the verses ‘Keep in mind that this is not a literary circle/It’s not coming from up above’. Here a possible interpretation could be that the literary circle alludes to Cenaclul Flacăra (“The Flame” Literary Circle), a cultural project started in the mid-seventies that lasted until the mid-eighties, consisting in shows and concerts for the masses. Although considered more liberal in comparison to the official artistic production, it was still ‘coming from up above’. Also, the word “trip” does not refer to a journey in the countryside, but rather to an “exciting or stimulating experience” (one of the informal meanings of the word according to Oxford Dictionaries). The combination between the ‘trip’ and ‘a few years of rap’ is the result of Bean’s inspirational process, and leads to a construction of a peculiar genre. In this context, it could be interesting to try to find out what his grandmother might have listened to ‘back in the day’. Thus, a glimpse at the local traditions in Dolhasca, the place where everything started for Bean and underground folklore will follow. This trip to an archaic place will provide a 1

the article “The Music of Rumanian Gypsies” by A.L. Lloyd provides a very good description of the word “lautar”, here used as a metaphor: “To most of us, Rumanian folk music means fiddle music, fast, furious and exotic. Yet in fact the fiddle is rarely found in the hands of the Rumanian peasant musician. He has his own instruments- giant alphorns, five kinds of bagpipes, and countless forms of flutes. The fiddle, like the cimbalom and the pan-pipes, belongs not to the world of the peasant amateur but to that of the public performer, the professional minstrel, the lautar. There are rural lautari and urban lautari. The popular professional minstrels of the towns play mostly in restaurants or, to an increasing extent nowadays, in concert halls. The rural lautari make most of their living by playing at weekend dances (horas) and at country weddings, which even today may last as long as three days or more. Most of these professional minstrels are gypsies” (Lloyd, 19631964)

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deeper understanding of the Subcarpați phenomenon, and a better contextualization of the sound of the band in their mission of ‘synthesizing the melody of the country’.

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1.2.

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Dolhasca, an archaic place

Dolhasca, located in the North-East of Romania, was a childhood refuge for Bean MC, the founder and leader of the Subcarpați project. Bean’s case is representative for the majority of the people growing up in Romania, who spend a significant amount of time in the countryside, a space that plays an important role in individual development and the collective imaginary – the place where everything began. Even nowadays, almost half of Romania’s population, 46% according to Eurostat, lives in the countryside (Eurostat, 2012). The hypothesis is that Dolhasca represents a place where an archaic way of life seems to be preserved, characterized by a ‘revolt against concrete, historical time’ and ‘nostalgia for a periodical return to the mythical time of the beginning of things, to the Great Time’ (Eliade, 1959, p. xi). It is documented that the territory of Dolhasca has been inhabited since the 3rd century BC. Recent archaeological studies (between 1972 and 1976), especially the ones conducted by archaeologist Silvia Teodor, produce evidence of a continuous human activity in the area, starting with the Neolithic (Ecomunitate, 2012). Of course, it is not enough to state that an archaic way of life was formed and preserved in Dolhasca due to human presence throughout the centuries. But an analysis of the still preserved customs that have a repetitive nature could shed more light on the subject. The folklore tradition in Dolhasca, like in many places in Romania, is mainly represented by the customs of the winter period, especially the ones around Christmas and New Year’s Eve. By ‘repeating them every year, the local traditions are preserved and enriched’ (Ecomunitate, 2012). It is interesting to observe the verb “repeat” in this context that could be linked to the ‘eternal repetition of the cosmogonic act’ and to the ‘need of archaic societies to regenerate themselves periodically through the annulment of time’ (Eliade, 1959, p. 85). By dividing time into independent parts such as ‘years’, ‘we witness not only the effectual cessation of a certain temporal interval and the beginning of another’, but also ‘the abolition of the past year and of past time’, that leads to a ritual purification similar to a ‘combustion’, and represents an ‘annulling of the sins and faults of the individual and of those of the community as a whole’ (Eliade, 1959, p. 54). Even in a modern context the ‘New Year still preserves the prestige of the end of a past and the fresh beginning of a new life’ (Eliade, 1959, p. 77). Although some of the people that respect and take part in the local traditions do 11

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not realize the meaningful mythology behind their acts, it does not mean that the act itself loses importance. However, Bean’s relationship with tradition does not seem to fit this pattern. For Bean the metaphorical return to Dolhasca represented a way to escape from the city, from the fortress; a gateway to another ‘spiritual world’ and ‘imaginary universe’ that could not remain without an effect (Barbaneagra, 1987). Once assimilated the ‘capacity of deciphering religious, mythological and moral values’, life becomes worthy of living, ‘because the unknown world that opens in front of us is full of messages and hope’ (Barbaneagra, 1987).

The process of initiation in Bean’s spiritual life could not have

happened in a place other than Dolhasca. Combined with a sentiment of nostalgia (concept that will be later addressed, the return “home” situates Bean in a timeless world; a world in which through the act repetition, people always ‘live in an atemporal present’ (Eliade, 1959, p. 86). It could be considered a process in which history is refused. The desire felt by the man of traditional societies to refuse history, and to confine himself to an indefinite repetition of archetypes, testifies to his thirst for the real and his terror of "losing" himself by letting himself be overwhelmed by the meaninglessness of profane existence (Eliade, 1959, p. 92)

The concept of repetition could be used not only to analyze the behaviour of archaic man, but also to underline the structure of the cultural products he creates. In the following pages, the word “repetition” will be used as main feature of ‘colinde’ (the plural of the Romanian noun ‘colind/colinda’), a musical genre ‘spread almost all over the traditionalcultural area of Eastern Europe’, which ‘seem to be best represented, and with the largest complexity preserved, in the Romanian rural tradition’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 119). It is documented (Ecomunitate, 2012) that the main ceremonies in Dolhasca during the New Year period are represented by the performance of colinde, which up until the Second World War were practiced almost everywhere in Romania (Eliade, 1980, p. 11). The focus of the next chapter will be on the similarities between two genres distant in space and time, colinde and hip-hop/rap (throughout this chapter the two constructions will be used as synonyms; hip-hop will be analysed as a musical genre, not a cultural phenomenon that includes rap among other elements).

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From colinde to hip-hop

The translation of the word “colind” is sometimes ‘carol’ or ‘Christmas carol’, but a more specific correspondent could be ‘traditional winter-solstice-song’, to underline the considerable difference in terms of ‘complexity and variety’, ‘composition and performance’, ‘poetic, musical, formal’ and functionality from the ‘Christmas carols known in the West’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 120). Being of a pagan origin, the Church intended to abolish, ‘with rather doubtful results’, the practice of colinde, a pre-Christian custom that was preserved thanks to a particular geographical situation and to the ‘moderate political power of the Eastern churches’ (Eliade, 1980, p. 11). In 1647 a Lutheran pastor, Andreas Mathesius, observed amongst the Romanians in Transylvania the practice of what he called ‘the infamous colinde’, ‘devilish songs (Taifelsgesenger) learned by the young men before Christmas’ (Eliade, 1980, p. 11). Mathesius adds that eventually ‘the men were obliged by the authorities to give up’ the ‘Romanian colinde’ and to learn the ‘Christian’ ones; ‘they did learn them, writes Mathesius, but they continued to sing the old ones as well’ (Eliade, 1980, p. 11). The “colindători”, the young men singing colinde, united in a group called “ceata” go from house to house and ‘while on the street they make as much noise as they can – shouting, singing, and beating their drums in order that no one in the village be allowed to sleep that night’ (Eliade, 1980, p. 12). The order of the colinde is also important. In front of each house they first ask permission of the host then sing a specific colinda at the window, another one at the door, and the rest inside the house. After the singing, they dance with the young girls, even the little ones. Sometimes a few of them, wearing different masks, perform a short spectacle of the carnival type. (Eliade, 1980, p. 12)

The traditional mask worn by those performing colinde is also one of the elements in the performances carried out by Subcarpați. In musical videos, such as “Tza tza tza, căpriţă, tza” or “Balada Românului”, masks are used to create a striking visual effect. In an interview, Beans remembers the times when he used to be part of a group of colindători, back in Dolhasca, and states his intention of taking the masks and eventually going back to the countryside for the celebrations of the New Year (Alexe, 2012). In the group of colindatori there is usually a young man wearing a traditional mask representing an animal (a goat, a stag, etc). The mask, symbol of the divinity dies in a violent way at the end of the ceremony in order to be reborn along with the New Year (Ghinoiu, 2013, p. 72). 13

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According to Ion Ghinoiu’s Dictionary of Romanian Mythology, the ritual of colinde could be defined as ‘a complex ceremony, organized by a specific group of people, which through sung or shouted texts, and sometimes with the use of masks, dances, ritual gestures and magical formulas transmit the news of the death and rebirth of the adored divinity, bless the community and make wishes for the New Year’ (Ghinoiu, 2013, p. 89). A colinda usually ends with an oration (urare) ‘addressed to the master of the house’ and ‘recited by the vataf’ (the leader of the group) or ‘by each member’ (Eliade, 1980, p. 12). The orations ‘are similar to those sung at marriages’, representing ‘the most important and the more archaic element’ of colinde; ‘most probably, in ancient times they were recited or sung at the beginning of the ceremony’ symbolizing ‘a ritual benediction of the New Year’ (Eliade, 1980, p. 12). With a repertoire that ‘varies from village to village’ and a number between ‘ninety to about thirty’, the performance of colinde also includes particular themes; for example the ones sung for the dead, ‘for families who had lost a member during the year’ (Eliade, 1980, p. 12). It is known that ‘poetry once had a prized place in both public and private affairs’. On different occasions, from births to deaths, from weddings to funerals, festivals and family gatherings, ‘people would recite poetry to give shape to their feelings’ (Bradley, 2009, p. xii). Rap could also be considered poetry, ‘but its popularity relies in part on people not recognizing it as such’. This is because people often associate rap with ‘good times’, while considering poetry ‘hard work’, ‘something to be studied in school or puzzled over for hidden insights’ (Bradley, 2009, p. xii). This supposition does not apply to Subcarpați, mainly because their rap is not about good times; on the contrary, it sometimes reflects the devilish, pagan vibe of the archaic colinde, leading to more basic and practical uses of poetry. If ‘rap is a public art’, then ‘rappers could be considered our main public poets’, ‘extending a tradition of lyricism that spans continents and stretches back thousands of years’ (Bradley, 2009, p. xiii). Bean’s double identity, both as a colindator and as a rapper, could be confusing in outlining his status as an artist. The hypothesis is that both genres have had at least the same importance in creating and developing Bean’s style, and implicitly the sound of underground folklore. Before engaging in a more concrete analysis of the relationship between the two realities, colinde and hip-hop, it could be interesting to point out Bean’s vision regarding the definition of underground folklore. Starting with the idea that even folklore has its underground part, Bean likes to think of the genre of Subcarpați as ‘natural way to produce music’ (Alexe, 2012), just like a shepherd who finds a piece of wood and scoops it and starts playing a melody of longing, of 14

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mourning (Alexe, 2012). The image of the shepherd is also very representative in the context of colinde, because in most cases it resembles God. In fact, ‘God – as well as Jesus, Saint Peter, or the Virgin Mary – looks very much like a Romanian peasant’ in the collective imaginary, and a relevant number of ‘colinde present God as a shepherd with a flock of sheep, piping on a shepherd's flute’ (Eliade, 1980, p. 14). It is not only Bean’s ideal image of underground folklore that is represented by a shepherd playing a flute, but also his creative process seems to imitate, in a metaphorical way, of course, the archaic image of God. In most cases the main motif of a Subcarpați song is inspired by one of Bean’s ideas, which springs while he is playing the kaval (in Romanian ‘caval’), an end-blow flute associated with shepherds. Moreover, underground folklore is defined by the same Bean as ‘the place in which you forget everything you learned about folklore and you start to feel more’; he feels close to those shepherds’ state of mind, and for him that mood is crucial in the definition of underground. ‘Maybe this was the main drive’, Bean continues, ‘the catalyser, the search of the lost sound’ (Alexe, 2012). In the search of this lost sound it is important to try to find influences from colinde in the outline of underground folklore, this time from a melodic and structural point of view, implying as well the features of hip-hop. The recital of colinde is practiced even nowadays, repeated year after year, depicting a survival trait characterized ‘not only by virtue of the tradition's inertia or of the (mostly forgotten) venerability of the pieces origin’ but mostly ‘by virtue of an imperishable rationale’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 120). This rationale lies in the independence of the colinda from the narrative text, from ‘the melody’ and even ‘from the quality of performance’, in its constant alteration, representing ‘something that communicates and satisfies now’, in the ‘very moment of its actualization’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 120). It could be considered an act of improvisation on the part of the singers, ‘independent both to (poetic) text and tune’, which has nothing to do with their ‘conscious intention’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 120). This improvisation finds its basis in the numerous possibilities of the so called ‘syntagmatic repetition’ (repetition of the verse and strophic refrain). In Romanian ‘traditional/folk singing a single poetic text can receive up to 64 formal treatments/versions’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 120). Some of the elements mentioned above, such as alteration, actualization, improvisation and repetition could be easily integrated in a description of the poetics of hip hop, the background of underground folklore. The similarities between two genres so distant in time and space, colinda and hip-hop, wrap the sound of underground folklore with a hard to ignore naturalness. A Romanian peasant that recites colinde could be compared to a hip hop MC (MC 15

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standing for master of ceremonies), who combines the beat with his cadence in order to satisfy ‘the audience’s musical and poetic expectations’ by disrupting the patterns of a certain song ‘through syncopation and other pleasing forms of rhythmic surprise’ (Bradley, 2009, p. xv). Subcarpați’s performances, especially live, present common features with the interpretation of colinde, such as ‘repeating the verses, intermingling the refrains, breaking and prolonging the lyrics by vowels and pauses’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 119); actions that could lead to a new and different structure of the song with every performance, ‘divorced from most considerations of melody and harmony’ (Bradley, 2009, p. xvi). Regarding “repetitivity”, the songs of Subcarpați present this feature both from a lyrical and from an instrumental point of view. The inner structure of the verses is defined by repetitiveness (whether it’s the case of one or more words, or just syllables), allowing the song to acquire a type of “catchiness” similar to the one of colinde, a genre that lived throughout the centuries also because of its facility in being passed on orally, in terms of memorability. Instrumentally speaking, the element that defines hip-hop’s repetitiveness is the rhythm, the ‘beat’, made of ‘the kick drum, the high hat and the snare’, which can be ‘sampled or digitized, beatboxed, or even tapped out on a tabletop’ (Bradley, 2009, p. 4). The rhythms of Subcarpați go from hip-hop to dubstep, from dancehall to drum and bass, but the main beat is always a derivate of hip-hop. It could be stated that ‘poetry was born in rhythm rather than in words’, if we imagine that the ‘first poem might well have been a cry uttered by one of our ancient ancestors long before modern language emerged’ (Bradley, 2009, p. 5). Thus, ‘in its simples terms’, a poem could be regarded as ‘reproduction of the living tones of speech, regardless of meaning’ (Bradley, 2009, p. 5). Rhythm is crucial in the economy of rap, because ‘no matter how conversational an MC’s lyrics may sound, their rhythm makes them poetry’ (Bradley, 2009, p. 5). Rappers have a word for what they do when the rhythm sparks them; they call it flow. Simply put, flow is an MC’s distinctive lyrical cadence, usually in relation to a beat. It is rhythm over time. In a compelling twist of etymology, the word rhythm is derived from the Greek rheo, meaning “flow” (Bradley, 2009, p. 6)

As an art form per se, hip hop is based on repetition – ‘but repetition with a difference’ – leading to a creative process that ‘consists of MCs taking ready-made things that are close at hand and transforming them to fit the pattern of their unique artistic vision’ (Bradley, 2009, p. 212). This process applies to Subcarpați as well, the majority of their songs being inspired by other hip-hop works or Romanian traditional motifs. To fit the first case scenario, a good 16

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example is the song “Rău necesar” (Necessary evil), from the brand new album Pielea de găina (Goosebumps), released on the 13th of June 2014. The song is inspired by Roy Ayers’ “We live in Brooklin, Baby”, both from an instrumental and lyrical point of view; the main keyboard motif is basically the same, although the rhythm is slightly slower and more spatial, conferring an echo-ness designed to give “goosebumps”. As for the chorus, the pattern is identical, leading to a translation from the original version, with only two substitutions – Bucharest (Bucureşti) instead of Brooklyn, and mother (mamă) instead of baby. Trăim în Bucureşti mamă Vrem să reuşim mamă Şi-o să reuşim mamă Trăim în Bucureşti mamă (Subcarpati, 2014)

We live in Brooklyn baby We wanna make it baby We’re gonna make it baby We live in Brooklyn baby (Ayers, 1971)

Described by the band as “a tale from Bucharest Babylon”, the song detaches itself completely from the American correspondent, due to the two kaval solos, which give the feeling of falling asleep in the Romanian mountains, and then waking up in the heart of Bucharest’s jungle.

Although the loop, the ready-made, and the use of registration as

reference situate hip-hop in the realm of post modernity, without being able to exist as a philosophy outside these parameters (Balabas, 2012), the slightest contribution and personal interpretation can change completely the meaning of the primary source. The song “We live in Brooklyn, Baby” has been used as support by other hip-hop artists, from Mos Def to Papoose, mostly to state the pride of their origins, to represent their neighbourhood, Brooklyn. In the case of Subcarpați, Bucharest seems rather a place to escape from and the solution could be the refuge in places such as Dolhasca, the space and time of childhood. The return “home” to the countryside, and the rediscovery of folklore has changed the perspectives of the band towards musical composition. Of course, the main part of the process still involves the use of the ready-made, which could be represented by another hip-hop song or a Romanian folklore motif. Nevertheless, in some latest performances, the members of the band have tried to insert their own instrumental compositions, such as the ones on the kaval, which in the long run could substitute the need to cut small parts of Romanian traditional songs and use them as loops. Their relationship with folklore became deeper, and so did the need to use traditional instruments in order to express their feelings and contribution in a project meant to bring back the lost sound of folklore in people’s houses, in a format they could assimilate. And that sound seems to be the sound of childhood, and there are several different perspectives that attest to it.

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The sound of childhood

‘The repetition of traditional samples’ provides the songs of Subcarpați with a ‘strange atmosphere and a very visceral feverishness’; the compositions are wrapped in an aura of ‘improvisation and flimsy construction’ (Breazu, 2010). This reflection is very interesting and this third element, the almost stumpy and undefined sound of the band, apparently independent from text and tune also deserves a deeper investigation and a valid point could be represented by its integration in a scheme of the ‘ages of sound’. The ‘age of sound’ is a concept that brings together various stages of the development of musical forms, from a systematic point of view, not a historic one. These sections are not correlated to the stages of individuals, the cultural age of mankind, nor to the biological and mental age of humans and could be generically called: childhood, youth, adulthood, old age (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 27). In any case, the term “childhood” is not the equivalent of “primitivism”, the last being often ‘related to an outdated evolutionist perspective’ (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 27). Similarly, the term “adulthood” does not represent a ‘greater value from an aesthetic point of view’; the ‘passage from the first stage to the last does not represent a quality progress, but only a change of state, from flexible and irrational forms to fixed and rational forms’ (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 27). Thus, ‘what we call “adulthood” when referring to the age of a sound is not superior to what we call “childhood”, because these terms don’t have an axiological meaning and because cultural products that belong to different “ages” cannot be compared from an aesthetic point of view’ (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 27). The hypothesis is that the sound of Subcarpați describes the particularities of childhood, in terms of age. The childhood stage of sound is characterized by the predominance of the indetermination, of the continuum. The musical sound is ‘amorphous, unstable, tending towards noise, the melodic systems are not sufficiently delineated and rhythm and structure are hard to differentiate’ (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 28). This type of sound is called the “abyssal sound”, and a ‘good example could be the guttural sound of the Romanian kaval or the one of the buhai’ (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 28). The “buhai” (ox) is a friction drum made out of a wooden tub or bucket open at both ends with an animal skin tightened on top pierced in the middle for a horsehair "ox tail", used in the New Year's ritual plugușorul (‘the little plough’) where it reproduces the sound of oxen mooing when pulling the plough (Wikipedia). This paragraph takes us back to the archaic character of the New Year’s traditions, mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. It also describes the sound of the 18

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Romanian flute as “abyssal” – a connection here could be made with Bean’s search of the lost sound through the use of the kaval. Moreover instability is invocated as the main character of the childhood age, a common feature with the almost stumpy and undefined sound of Subcarpați. Furthermore, the ‘musical examples of this age of the sound seem to be triggered by the unconscious and probably represent the most elementary form of music; they are close to speaking, recitative or vocal signals’ (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 28). They represent the common musical background of humankind, from which the subsequent structured music emerged. ‘According to some theories, music seems to be born out of speech, or vocal signals, which are not fully singing’ (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 28). The aesthetics of hip-hop seem to perfectly fit this pattern, because rap ‘is not speech exactly, nor is it precisely song, and yet it employs elements of both’ (Bradley, 2009, p. xvii). Moreover, the singing technique used by Bean could be defined as ‘sprechgesang’, between singing and speaking (Teodoreanu, 2011, p. 30). Traditionally, the content of a song has been identified by scholars as ‘being made out of music and (poetic/discoursive) text’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 125). But there could also be a third element which fits into the description of Subcarpati’s songs, that passes through the traditional aesthetics of colinde, the architectural building of hip-hop and the unconscious feature of the childhood sound. This ‘immaterial’, ‘essential’ element ‘intervenes in order to compose the real being of a song’ and it consists in the very ‘spirit, appetite, instinct’, in which the poetic body, ‘dominated by the subconscious spirit of architectural building, achieves itself as a work of art, and functions as sacred experience’ (Balasa, 2003, p. 125). The different factors that go into creating a particular sound, like underground folklore, range from primordial elements to colinde, from urban environments and hip-hop to the quiet, archaic life still present in Dolhasca. All of these factors speak about more than just music, since they are related to the state of the Romanian society nowadays. Such a fusion of diverse elements calls to attention other issues that have been concretized in the Subcarpați phenomenon. After an analysis of the inner-working of their musical productions, the context that surrounds their music has to be taken into consideration as well. If their music marks a change in Romanian music, it must mean that the change occurred first in society.

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2. From identity crisis to national unity

Mă adresez tinerilor în special în criză de identitate, fenomen naţional

I address myself especially to young people that are going through an identity crisis, a national phenomenon

Şi nu vreau să-ţi devin conştiinţă, taică vreau doar să înveţi din greşeli, dar stai că Lumea o să mă-nţeleagă greşit “uite ce figuri de românache obosit” Am spirit naţional, dar nu sunt fanatic Folcloru'-i oxigen pentru un popor astmatic

I don’t want to become your consciousness, man I just want for you to learn from your mistakes, but wait People will get me wrong “Look at the character on this lame Romanian” I have national spirit, but I’m not a fanatic Folklore is oxygen for an asthmatic people

Trecutul şi prezentul mă definesc ca roman chiar dacă sunt atipic în felu' în care o spun Mi-o zice numele, o zic actele şi mai nou aş vrea s-o zică faptele Am brazi ca verişori şi molizi ca fraţi iar lumea prin ţară ne cheamă Subcarpați Cănd eu zic limba, voi ziceţi:română

The past and the present define me as a Romanian Even though I’m atypical in the way I state it My name says it, my papers say it And lately I wish my actions could say it I have fir trees as cousins and spruces as brothers And people all over the country call us Subcarpați When I say language, you say Romanian (Subcarpați, Balada Romanului, 2012)

The song “Balada Românului” (The Ballad of the Romanian) is the hit of the album Underground Folklore, released in 2012 by Subcarpați, with approximately 1.5 million clicks on Youtube so far (the most popular musical video of the band). The reasons for its popularity could vary; from the manifesto-feature to the trippy visuals (which involve the Romanian traditional masks mentioned in the chapter 1.3), from the frenetic violin motif to the calculated yet sometimes unexpected alternation of the beats (the intro being dominated by undefined and interrupted scratching that makes room for the main beat, which eventually transforms into a drum and bass madness that in the end fades and allows the voice to restate the chorus). Whatever the choice of the common listener might be, there is one thing that cannot be treated with indifference: the content of the lyrics. The main words of the song that deserve a deeper investigation are “Romanian”, “national” and “identity” (or more likely “identity crisis”). The message that insists on national unity makes Balada Românului one of the most explicit songs of Subcarpați and can lead to a new understanding of how the concept of identity could be used to build a Romanian consciousness. Although the verse ‘I have a national spirit, but I am not a fanatic’ could be seen as an attempt to render the character of the song milder, interpretations vary, and the general impression that the manifest projects more nationalism than it lets on. By using the song as starting point, which later will be accompanied by other lyrical fragments as example, a discourse around the concept of identity, and implicitly around Romanian identity can be 20

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brought into question. Identity is about belonging, about what you have in common with some people and what differentiates you from others. At its most basic it gives you a sense of personal location, the stable core to your individuality. But it is also about your relationships, your complex involvement with others and in the modern world these have become ever more complex and confusing. Each of us live with a variety of potentially contradictory identities, which battle within us for allegiance: as men or women, black or white, straight or gay, able-bodied or disabled, ‘British’ or ‘European’ . . . The list is potentially infinite, and so therefore are our possible belongings. Which of them we focus on, bring to the fore, ‘identify’ with, depends on a host of factors. At the centre, however, are the values we share or wish to share with others (Rutherford, 1990, p. 88)

The problem when talking about identity is that the word ‘has taken on so many different connotations that sometimes it is obvious that people are not even talking about the same thing’ (Rutherford, 1990, p. 43). One thing at least is clear – identity only becomes an issue when it is in crisis, when something assumed to be fixed, coherent and stable is displaced by the experience of doubt and uncertainty (Rutherford, 1990, p. 43)

Identity has been the subject of numerous studies in the past years and the concept has been ‘deployed and developed through a number of different stories, academic stories as well as those of individuals, communities, peoples and nations’ (Woodward, 2002, p. 1) . Thus, an enormous bibliography has been created, making every new attempt at identity analysis seem both inadequate and frustrating. But different definitions can be used in different contexts, thus assuming different meanings; and the context is very important for the present study. The most ambitious characteristic of this dissertation is the contemporaneity of the context – most of the events described are current, they “just” happened or they are still happening – and the limitless possible approaches are a really good description of the world we live in, infinite in choices. Identity is about ‘belonging’ and ‘common values’, but before engaging in an analysis of belonging and commonness inside a community, it is important to start from a less ample perspective and consider significant the identity process of an individual, the young individual that Subcarpați ‘especially’ address themselves to. For most of human history, forming an adult identity was by all accounts a relatively straightforward process. The average person simply assumed and fitted into the culturally prescribed roles that his or her parents and grandparents had themselves adopted. Those who did not do so might have been banished from their community, or at least sanctioned in some way. (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 1)

The process of initiation towards adulthood has drastically changed in modern societies and sometimes it might never take place. Throughout human history, ‘identity

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formation was not a matter of individual choice and negotiation, so problems associated with these activities were not common’ (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 1). Thus, humans are not used to ‘living in societies where they are continually confronted with high levels of choice over fundamental matters of personal meaning’ (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 1). The comparison between modern and premodern societies is not pointed towards ‘glorifying’ the latter (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 1). Not so long ago, the concept of “identity crisis” was not so common. It seems that technological advances, which have proven to be extremely important for recent history, are indirectly proportional with finding ‘a meaning of existence’ (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 2). Due to all these factors Romanian young people that find themselves in an identity crisis, as the lyrics of the song suggest. “Young people” and “identity crisis” are two constructions that have been constantly linked in recent times; sometimes so much that it almost seems a natural and harmless association. We are used to think of young people as individuals who are lacking in personality, with an undefined personality, with a defined but always-changing personality, or a double personality and so on. However, the term “identity crisis” has a much more sensible background that does not always point to “harmless” and easy associations. Erik H. Erikson coined the term “identity crisis” in order to define the ‘severely traumatized’ condition of the ‘war victims he treated during the Second World War’ (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 95). The construction he referred to as “shell-shocked” is used to describe the problem of Erikson’s patients, ‘which had lost their sense of themselves as having a past and future’, a situation in which the ‘ego had lost its sense of itself as a temporally continuous entity’, leading to a ‘severely impaired’ sense of identity (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 95). Erikson observed the ‘same symptoms of identity confusion’, ‘in severely conflicted young people whose sense of confusion was due, rather, to a war within themselves, and in confused rebels and destructive delinquents who war on their society’ (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 95). Connecting the two situations, Erikson described the ‘identity crisis as a period during which an individual’s previous (childhood) identity is no longer experienced as suitable, but a new identity is not yet established’, occurring ‘sometime during or following puberty’ and ending ‘any time from the late teens to the late 20s’ (Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 95). Erikson argued that an identity crisis of some form, even an extremely muted one, is a universal aspect of development as part of the transition from childhood to adulthood. On the one hand, wellstructured cultures provide some sort of initiation, rite of passage, or apprenticeship for this transition. Common to these structures is a benign guidance offered by the adult community to help most people through this period of tension-resolution 22

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(Cote & Levine, 2002, p. 96)

But what happens if the adult community does not offer a decent guidance? Romania’s case, which is by no means unique, provides a very rich material in terms of individual and social identity crisis. The song “Balada Românului” is mainly addressed to young people that are going through an identity crisis. The elements that symbolically pertain to the process of identification are the Romanian name, the Romanian ID card, and last but not least the Romanian language. All these symbols lead to the will for action (‘I wish my actions could say it’). Thus, when listening to the song, a young Romanian, uncertain or not about his/her identity, can be mesmerized by Bean’s convincing lyrics and flow. The rapper begins his manifest by saying that there is a possibility of people misinterpreting his message, as if he were apologizing in advance for any ‘fanatic’ interpretations of the song. He continues by saying that he has a national spirit, but not from an extremist perspective and then concludes the verse with a metaphor that later became the band’s motto, ‘folklore is oxygen for an asthmatic people’. What happens next (the lyrics that follow) transforms the song into a very debatable subject. When the song appeared, Facebook was almost collapsing because of the number of shares (that proved to be the first ‘action’ of the listeners) and the most common description that accompanied the video was “When I say language, you say Romanian”. The construction of phrases such as “When I say X, you say Y” clearly belongs to the rhetoric of rap and it is used especially during live performances when the artist interacts with the audience and almost controls the crowd. Subcarpați apparently succeeded in controlling the members of their crowd, in primis the ones sitting behind their laptops. But who decides when certain frontiers are crossed? To what extent can the song be considered nationalist or extremely nationalist? And to what extent could such a feature be misinterpreted if the band’s self-description is not ‘fanatic’? The concept of identity stems from the clashes that arise between “we” and “you”, “them” and “us” and so on. The elements of Romanian-ness revival described in the song cannot be shared by all members of Romanian society. Some of the more than one million Hungarian ethnics living in Transylvania could be offended by the song or at least left outside its parameters because apparently they don’t share all the attributes of what, according to the song, means to be a Romanian. Can they consider the same ‘fir trees’ as brothers? Then again, a strange case of positive assimilation of the song has occurred in which 23

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none of the elements of national identity mentioned above (language, name, ID) applied to the listener. The band published in 2013 on their Youtube channel, less than a year after the release of “Underground Folklore”, a video in which a young foreign individual sings with an almost perfect Romanian pronunciation the song “Balada Romanului”. The protagonist of the video described himself as Chinese-Colombian by birth, Panamanian raised and Romanian at heart. Chinese on his mother’s side, Colombian on his father’s side, the protagonist of the video, was introduced to Subcarpați by a Romanian work colleague. As a challenge, the boy started learning Romanian after listening to “Balada Românului”, with significant results. The band saluted the initiative and posted the video. The song can create different reactions. In the first case scenario the point was not to assume that Subcarpați present a xenophobe attitude, but one cannot ignore the nationalist feature that could be exaggerated by the listener and thus transformed into xenophobe behaviour. In another song, called “Doina Spiritului”2, from the band’s first album, released in 2010, the same idea of national unity is present. E manifest anti-teritorial Îndemn la spirit naţional Atenţie! Fără fanatism! Atenţie! S-a făcut sânge cu el în istorie

It is a anti-territorial manifest An urge for national spirit Caution! No fanaticism! Caution! Blood was spilled because of it throughout history (Subcarpati, Doina Spiritului, 2010)

History matters. It matters because it provides the ever-changing characteristic of the process of identity construction, which finds itself in deep connection with time and place. In the song “Balada Românului” Bean makes a reference to the ‘past’ and the ‘present’ that define him as a Romanian, but without making clear which past and which present. Thus, an analysis of the Romanian past and present could represent a main point in the present study, not from an objective, historical point of view (because it is quite impossible to describe historical events from an objective point of view), but rather from the perspective of how people relate to certain events. History is important both to our sense of who we are and to our understanding of the present. The voices that count in the telling of history shape the narratives and the perspectives from which both past and present are understood. Misrepresentation and non-representation are both damaging (Weedon, 2004, p. 29)

The misrepresentations and non-representations cause damage because they can 2

According to dexonline.ro “doina” is a poem of Romanian folklore that expresses a sentiment of longing, or revolt, or love [...]. Doina is sung by the ‘bitterly persecuted peasants to keep themselves alive; without it they would have disappeared. Singing or chanting their sufferings, imagining absent happiness, has brought them consolation, given them their only joy (Poetry Foudation, 1914) 24

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transform history in ‘an instrument of power’ or become a cause of history as instrument of power – ‘whoever controls the past has good chance of also controlling the present’ (Boia, 2001, p. 237). In Romania’s case, which is by no means singular, ‘the conditioning of public opinion through history has proved to be a constant part of the strategy of those in power, a method which is all the more clever as most people do not even notice it’. (Boia, 2001, p. 237). If we were to add elements such as ‘tradition’, ‘custom’ and ‘insistent propaganda’, we could state that ‘Romanians seem to be more attracted by symbols specific to national cohesion and authority than to those characteristic of democratic life’ (Boia, 2001, p. 230). For many years there has been a historical and political discourse ‘which insistently sublimates the idea of national unity and even unanimity around certain values, political attitudes, and personalities’, constructed around the idea that during the ‘great national problems’, the ‘Romanians have always shown “solidarity”’ (Boia, 2001, p. 231). This kind of discourse has influenced various generations of people that constructed a personal view of Romanian history characterized only by certainties. They could be called people without doubts. As historian Lucian Boia argues, the effervescent idea of a national unity in times of trouble is completely untrue. In the Middle Ages, [...] the Romanian principalities were often in confrontation. In the present century Romanian society has proved to be more often divided than united. A crucial decision, leading to the creation of Greater Romania, was the entry of Romania into the First World War in 1916, against the Central Powers. Contrary to the myth of a Romanian quasi-unanimity in the action aimed at liberating Transylvania, it can be observed that a far from negligible section of the political and intellectual elite were not in favor of this political orientation, while some voices were even raised decisively against it (even if all shared, though each in their own way, the “national ideal”). And what about the Second World War? Is it possible to claim that all Romanians were enthusiastically in favor of entering the war alongside Germany in 1941, and that again all Romanians, equally enthusiastically, were in favor of turning the guns against Germany in 1944? Then there is the installation of communism. Was it supported by all Romanians? Or .did all Romanians fight against it? In fact, during the years of communism an older fracture line was deepened; the old elite was crushed, and a new elite rose from the lower layers of society. It was a process which divided Romania in two, so that we can talk today (in a political and cultural sense) of “two Romanias”, just as there has been talk of “the two Frances” since the revolution of 1789 (Boia, 2001, p. 231)

Boia writes about two Romanias. But now, more than a decade later, two seems – in the best case scenario – a forced minimum number. There are several “Romanias”, and the one described by Subcarpați is in turn composed by various parts of other Romanias. The members of the band consider themselves to be “underground” and could easily be integrated in an anti-canon discourse, because their folklore is different from the one planned from the “centre”, where national consciousness is constructed, mutilated and then served. Subcarpați see folklore as a‘spring of energy’ that could give people a common goal, a ‘common 25

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consciousness’ (Subcarpati, 2010). Moreover, they affirm that they find themselves in the country in which a desperate common ground between people is necessary, and that no politician, national hero (true or false) or historian could describe Romania better than the music they produce (Subcarpati, 2010). However, ‘national unanimity’ remains only a ‘political myth which has not existed and does not exist anywhere’ and ‘divergences appear, as it is only natural they should, in the great problems, not in the small ones’ (Boia, 2001, p. 231). Lucian Boia sums up the general social character of Romanian society in terms of nationalism, imagined history, illusory superiority and obsessive inferiority. If nationalism means the acceptance of inextricable conflicts, autochthonism, its privileged variant in the Romanian environment, leads in a no less worrying direction. Nationalism implies the affirmation of primacy over the others. Autochthonism almost ends up ignoring them, sinking into a world of its own, practically out of history. Neither confrontation nor isolationism are acceptable solutions. We know that only too well, but it seems that history drags us back. Not real history, but the history we imagine. This history, in which the Romanians are different from the others and subject to persecution by the others, a paradoxical combination of illusory superiority with an obsessive complex of inferiority, illustrates a state of mind which is inappropriate to our time. Insistent actualization of a glorified past and abandonment in its trap perpetuate confrontation in relation to others and immobility in relation to ourselves. We do not need to wipe the battlefields from our memory. But perhaps we can succeed, as the French and Germans have succeeded, in giving them a new significance. (Boia, 2001, p. 240)

Sometimes what people imagine is the most important thing. And after all what is a nation other than ‘an imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign’ (Anderson, 2006, p. 6). Benedict Anderson writes about the relationship between the members of the nation and their idea of living in a community and gives the example of the Olympic Games, where national spirit is strongly manifested. Of course, the examples nowadays are numerous and the most recent one could be the football World Cup in Brazil, a country where football is more than a sport, some might define it as a religion; thus a World Cup tournament could be seen as a metaphor for a modern-day crusade. Nevertheless, Anderson describes a nation as ‘imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’(Anderson, 2006, p. 6). Although members of a community will never meet each other, they still have common values that lead to the creation of a common identity. As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, identity is about belonging and common values. When talking about nation-states there are quite a few elements that define identity, from official symbols to unofficial ones.

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States mobilize flags, anthems, monuments and rituals to promote narratives of identity and belonging. Other agencies and institutions, from tourist boards to industry and commerce, market national costumes, crafts and customs, cuisines and landscapes in their constructions of what makes a nation different and, in this case, worth visiting. Often these images have little to do with life as it is lived. Identity in all its forms, even national identity, is never singular but is plural, fractured and reconfigured by gender, ethnic and class relations. (Weedon, 2004, p. 20)

The relationship between Subcarpați and national symbols is strong, and it is probable that the success of the band was initially influenced by its association with key dates of national memory. The band’s first concert in Romania was on the 16th of October 2010 in Timișoara, in the western part of the country, the city where the Romanian Revolution of 1989 began. “Romanian Revolution” will be the construction used throughout the study, although opinions about the events in Romania in December ’89 are various and deeply antithetical (another good example of Romania’s false unity in moments of crisis). It is the term most widespread and the most common in people’s memory. The only certain thing about the Romanian Revolution is that people do not know what actually happened and they will probably not find out in the near future. The motto used by the protesters during the uprising in Timisoara was “Today in Timisoara, tomorrow in the whole country”. Subcarpați used the same motto after their first concert in Romania, clearly stating their goal to conquer the whole country through another revolution, this time a cultural one. Although their first appearance was in October 2010, the official Subcarpați day is on the 1st of December, Romania’s National day, also known as the day of the Great Union. This date was set as national holiday after the ’89 Revolution and it celebrates the union of Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania on the 1st December 1918. The Romanian national symbols are the national flag, the coat of arms, the national anthem and the national holiday. The national flag is rarely seen in public manifestations, except in cases such as football matches or Subcarpați concerts. The national holiday coincides with the almost traditional celebration of the band held every year on the 1st of December, when songs like “Balada Romanului” become an anthem. If one adds folklore to these elements, Subcarpați could be considered to have all the ingredients for the recipe of a new national consciousness. The same process of imagined community could be applied to describe the people involved in this cultural phenomenon, but a more correct definition would be “semi-imagined”, because the majority of the artists involved in the underground hip-hop sphere know each other; it is the audience that can build the imaginary feature. Around all these elements there is a crucial date, a catalyser – December 1989. This year became the anno domini for the then very young generation of the members of the band 27

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(people born between 1980 and 1990) and played an important role not only in building the identity of the band, but also the identity of its public. The importance of the anti – totalitarian events in December 1989 can be seen in the first single of the band called “Când a fost la ‘89” (In English: When in ’89). The analysis of the song in the next pages will represent a perspective on how the band relates to historical events.

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3. When in ’89

Cum ai fost tu Românie, au mai fost și alte țări. Au mai fost și or să fie și aici și peste mări. [...] Nu au mai putut răbda, haiducii au umplut strada, că nu vor securitate și rația din gostate. [...] Veneau flăcăi din uzine precum un roi de albine, dar printre ei erau iscoade de-ntorceau vorbele tóate De-ntorceau vorbele toate, Of, of, că d-aia mor

Other countries have been Just like you used to be, Romania Many have been and others will be Here and overseas [...] They could not take it anymore The “outlaws” occupied the streets, Tired of “Securitate” And of the greengrocery rations [...] Lads were coming from the factories Like swarming bees But amongst them there were spies That were turning all the words around Turning all the words around Oh, it kills me inside (Subcarpati, Când a fost la '89, 2010)

Although deteriorated in time, ‘this subject was never marked by traditional Romanian music – the way it used to happen with historical events back in the day’. This is the description that accompanied the first single and video of Subcarpați at the end of June 2010. According to Bean the video is about the arrival of the Romanian peasant to the city, a moment that for many peasants represented the ‘end’ (Alexe A. M., 2010, p. 18); the end as a metaphor for the sudden change in lifestyle, from the quiet environment of the countryside to the improvised, grey and forced soviet-like neighbourhoods. The video is related to Bean’s identity as well, because he was born and raised in that kind of neighbourhood, as the majority of the people growing up in the cities of Romania, but his parents came from the countryside. This dual-relationship between city and countryside represents a good personification of the connection between hip-hop and folklore as ingredients of underground folklore. The video is about a passage from the countryside to the city and the lyrics are describing an event that should have been a passage from a society to another. In both cases the transition results difficult and it does not fully occur. The song opens with a preface – a chorus addressed to Romania, in which the country is advised that its character is by no means unique and that similar situations will occur, maybe because people tend to forget their history and make the same mistakes all over again, in different times, ‘here and overseas’. The next strophe resumes in four verses the main reasons that led to the uprisings in 1989. 29

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The word “haiduc” is a key word to describe the ones that ‘occupied’ the street, but the translation ‘outlaw’ is not at all satisfactory. According to Romanian dictionaries (Dexonline, 2014) the word has different meanings and may refer to a person that would retire in the mountains against domination, steal from the rich and give to the poor, to a mercenary or to a Hungarian soldier (the word being borrowed from the Hungarian “haijdu”). The most common feature of the word in its various meanings is the fact that a “haiduc” would steal from the rich and give to the poor. The term is spread among the Balkans and it delineates a character similar to Robin Hood, present in folklore storytelling. The derivate word “haiduceasca” refers to a fast tempo folklore dance between men that make the use of bats during the performance (Dexonline, 2014), very similar to the one illustrated in the video of “Balada Romanului” two years later; of course, no intentional link was made between the two different words used in two different contexts (it is just an etymological lucky match). In the case of “When in ’89” the term “haiduc” is wisely used as a metaphor for the ones that were uprising against the totalitarian system, but it could also refer to the Romanian partisans that lived and resisted in the mountains during the communist dictatorship. The ‘outlaws’ occupied the streets because they were tired of the Securitate (the Department of State Security and probably the first word a foreigner might have learned when coming to Romania), the Romanian secret police that was responsible for many atrocities that occurred during almost a half century of dictatorship; but they occupied the streets mostly because of the portions they were receiving from the state’s ‘greengroceries’. Ceausescu’s plan to pay all international debts in the 80’s led to a rigorous economy of austerity that basically starved the country. The lack of food and of basic necessities such as heating, medical attention, combined with a lowering of the incomes were the main reasons of discontent that led to the events in December ’89, which ended with the fall of Ceausescu. Otherwise, the majority of the Romanian population was not against communism, from a philosophical point of view. It would be an illusion if we were to imagine that the majority of Romanians rose up in 1989 against communism as a system from philosophical motives, as it were. They rose up against the consequences of communism, refusing to go on accepting the total degradation of their conditions of life. And nowadays these same people are no longer ready to accept poverty out of love for democracy (Boia, 2001, p. 7)

The general vibe nowadays is that ‘at least half the Romanian population consider that they had a better life before 1989’ and ‘such nostalgia is fed not only by poverty but also by lack of adaptability to an open society (as proved by the fact that we find it also in the eastern part of Germany, which is far from poor)’ (Boia, 2001, p. 7).

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The ones that can’t adapt to an open society are mostly the people that were born and raised in the national-communist mentality, and for whom the “Golden Ages” were truly a time when they progressed from a social point of view, from peasants to workers, from workers to professors, politicians, etc. It is impossible for the young generations to imagine such a questionable and incredibly very recent past. Not even all the stories, movies, memoirs from the times of the regime could really transpose a young individual in that context. Lucian Boia argues that a ‘correct intellectual approach ought to dissociate the historical and moral judgement of communism from an assessment of people’s attitudes to communism’ (Boia, 2001, p. 7). He continues by stating that it is ‘one thing to arrive at the conclusion that it was an immoral and harmful system, and quite another to consider that all Romanians would have made the same judgement’ (Boia, 2001, p. 7). As mentioned before, there was an anti-communist resistance, but its importance in relation to the general context was non-existent. Of course, different opinions exist regarding this matter. There was indeed an anti-communist resistance: some would minimize its importance or even dispute its existence, while others, in contrast, give it a greater significance than it really had. There was also, even without open resistance, a degree of intellectual and individual nonadherence to communism. The “Romanian resistance” is a chapter of our history which has its share of truth but also of mythology. In general, “resistances” are amplified in the imaginary. Westerners have done the same thing in reconstructing the story of “anti-fascist resistance”. In fact in any society those who resist are in the minority compared with those who submit, accommodate themselves, or even profit. The Romanians who joined the Securitate were certainly more numerous than those who resisted in the mountains (Boia, 2001, p. 7)

The same Romanians that joined the Securitate could be the ones Bean sings about in the final strophe – the ‘spies’ that were infiltrated among the lads and that turned the words around. A lot of words were indeed turned around those days and a general panic was created. Romanians were fighting against Romanians and nobody was really on anyone’s side. “Spies”, “terrorists”, “soldiers” were the most spoken words and the reason why Bean “dies” inside is probably because of the strong media manipulation regarding the events of December ’89. Every ex-communist country has dealt with transition in its own way, some more successful than others. Romania, though, could be included in the “others” group. All postcommunist societies face major dilemmas in confronting their traumatic past. A functional democracy cannot be based on lies, denial, and amnesia. Romania's exit from communism has resulted in a hybrid quasi-democratic regime, with former communists [..] maintaining influential positions and opposing a genuine break with the past (Tismaneanu, 2008, p. 166)

In fact ‘Romania is the only ex-communist country where the Communist Party has vanished into thin air, where former communist activists remain in power (again a unique case) without having anything to do with a party that no longer exists, and, if it does not exist, 31

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almost seems never to have existed’ (Boia, 2001, p. 234). The general silence regarding this matter is sometimes disrupted by actions such as the song “Când a fost la ’89”, which try to deviate a bit an almost clear trajectory of the collective memory graphic, characterized by a strong temptation towards forgetting: behaving as if communism never existed (Boia, 2001, p. 234). By choosing such a sensible subject the song became an instant success on social networks. Of course the parts were again divided, and many “us” - and - “them” discussions flourished on the band’s Youtube channel. It is interesting though that the majority of people involved in the discussions were young people that weren’t even born in ’89, or they were at most little kids at the time. For the most of them the song became an opportunity to remember the Revolution, without basing the process on personal memories, but mainly on numerous stories and myths. For some the song felt like a good reason to criticise the present political order, mainly formed ‘in the years of communism’ (‘that is a fact, not a value judgement’) (Boia, 2001, p. 233) – held responsible for a tumultuous transition that originated in ’89. From a symbolical point of view the song could be defined as an action of remembering what others worked so hard to forget, or to make people forget. No viable democracy can afford to accept amnesia, forgetfulness, and the loss of memory. An authentic democratic community cannot be built on the denial of past crimes, abuses, and atrocities (Tismaneanu, 2008, p. 172)

Complementary to amnesia, forgetfulness and the loss of memory, there is another strategy that ‘can be summed up in the words: “Still, something was achieved”’ (Boia, 2001, p. 234). This phrase, which could at least reach a top three in the most common opinions between now and then, is accompanied by another construction such as ‘communism was as it was, but people still worked and created’ (Boia, 2001, p. 234). Such a line of argument – which is indeed true – has the virtue of diverting those who are less skilful in the tricks of dialectic. Any measuring of “achievements” ought to be based on an overall and comparative view. The Danaids, too, worked in their day, perhaps even more than the Romanians. According to this sort of judgement we should appreciate the achievements of Hider: the greatest motorway network in Europe, the eradication of unemployment (Boia, 2001, p. 234)

The phrase “people still worked and created” during communism goes to a certain extent. For instance, the etno-rock band Phoenix that was previously mentioned (chapter 1.1) created as much as they could, by transforming their lyrics into metaphors that were spotted with more difficulty from the “centre”. Other bands, such as Timpuri Noi reached even a higher level of finesse in writing songs that were proven to be against the system; moreover, the band admitted to have refused to be part of the “Flame” literary circle, and the lead singer, 32

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Artan, would sometimes imitate Ceausescu’s pronunciation while performing. So yes, creativity was stimulated, ‘but let us not imagine that they could create outside communism, as if the system were just a simple facade, an innocent unleashing of Romanian folklore’ (Boia, 2001, p. 234). After ’89 the territorial borders of Romania were opened, but also the cultural ones. After so many years of national propaganda people were more likely to look outside of Romania for inspiration. In terms of youth culture, the parts were divided (mainly in Bucharest) between the rockers and the “depeșari” (the ones that listened to Depeche Mode, which reached the peak of their carrier around that moment with the album “Violator”). The rockers were mostly influenced by Guns N’ Roses and later by Nirvana, and suddenly the youth began to breathe an air of involvement, of participation, of contemporaneity with their western correspondents. The neighbourhoods, characterized by a Wild Wild West vibe, where the local “entrepreneurs” would soon begin to play hide and seek with the law, created the premises for a type of “thug life” which a lot of youngster would aspire to. In the second half of the 90’s hip-hop started spreading worldwide in the format which distanced itself from the jazz, soul and funk riffs of the 70’s and 80’s, and became “harder”, instrumentally and from a lyrical point of view. At the time the “scene” was dominated by what appeared to be a never ending battle (not only metaphorical) between Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G, the representatives of the West side, respectively of the East side of American hip- hop. Both of them lost their lives because of this uncontrolled and exaggerated discourse of “us” and “them” that would soon be borrowed even by the precursors of Romanian hip-hop and applied at a more local level, between the neighbourhoods of the capital city. The neighbourhood would become a symbol for every young kid growing up, and the “bloc” (the soviet style building widely spread in all the ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe) would become a house and a playground, but nevertheless a main point in the formation of the individual’s identity. The spread of hip-hop nationwide occurred at the end of the 90’s with bands such as La Familia and B.U.G Mafia dominating the commercial sphere. But alongside the commercial, underground hip-hop started to flourish as well. The following pages will explore the position of the band inside the underground phenomenon, as well as their opposition to the use of music for commercial purposes.

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4. The thin line between underground and mainstream

‘Underground is the most beautiful playground for artists’ (Bivol, 2014)

According to many Hip Hop aficionados, Hip Hop culture consists of at least four fundamental elements: Disc jockeying (DJing), break dancing, graffiti art, and rapping (emceeing). Since its emergence in the South Bronx and throughout the northeast during the early and mid-1970s, Hip Hop has encompassed not just a musical genre, but also a style of dress, dialect and language, way of looking at the world, and an aesthetic that reflects the sensibilities of a large population of youth born between 1965 and 1984. This broad characterization of Hip Hop may seem imprecise to some, but it reflects the Hip Hop community's refusal to be singularly defined or categorized, and demonstrates the dynamic nature of Hip Hop as a phenomenon that many hip hoppers believe must be felt, experienced, and communicated (Alridge & Stewart, 2005, p. 190)

The four fundamental elements mentioned above (DJing, break dancing, graffiti art, and rapping) are also important in establishing a border between commercial and underground hip-hop. When talking about mainstream, some of these elements slowly distance themselves from their original meaning or worse, they do not appear, because the artist tends to ignore the heritage of hip-hop culture and follow only material interests. Underground on the other hand could be defined as the place where these elements are kept alive, and passed on to the future generations. The element of passion is evoked as central when talking about underground hiphop. The members of Subcarpați were recently the protagonists of a short documentary called Bucharest Underground Cocktail 3 – Docum3ntary, directed by Mihai Bivol and published on the 14th of June 2014. In the video the four elements mentioned above are the background for Subcarpați’s confessions. Emil Teleaga, also known as Afo, a common presence in the last two Subcarpați productions, Underground Folclor in 2012 and Pielea de Găină (Goosebumps) in 2014, talks in the documentary about how people labelled them as “underground”. He states that people associate underground with negative terms: ‘they think that if you are underground, it means that you are angry, bad [...], they associate you with the worst things’ (Bivol, 2014). Afo continues by providing his own definition of underground as ‘the most beautiful playground 34

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for artists’, a place where ‘they can fully express their work, where they can implement their feelings’ (Bivol, 2014). In this case, underground should not be defined in relationship with its etymology – it is not something situated “under” the canonical culture. It could be defined as a subculture, as ‘a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture’ or as ‘a denoting a group or movement seeking to explore alternative forms of lifestyle or artistic expression; radical and experimental’ (Oxford Dictionaries). Thus, aesthetic value judgements in which underground is considered inferior just because of prefixes such as “under” or “sub” should be avoided. Afo continues by stating that the inferiority of underground from an economical point of view does not stop the artists from constantly creating (Bivol, 2014). This fact could be also attributed to the new techniques and equipment involved in the production of music that are very accessible. Software programs such as Cubase or Ableton offer an amazing support for musical recording, editing, production, post-production, etc. One only needs a midi controller and a microphone to make a decent track. Add to that a consistent musical library of loops and effects and you have got studios of the 21st century that could be anybody’s bedroom or in some cases anybody’s backpack. Imagine any young individual with a certain dose of creativity and with basic knowledge of sound-engineering, hanging out at the beach, at home, in a train, in a bar or on a bench in the park, with a 25-key midi controller and a laptop, enjoying the same features of musical production as all the popular artists in the world. Once the song is done, the social media become the new record labels in terms of promotion and distribution, and they often win the battle with major companies such as Universal, Sony or Warner. Subcarpați’s consists in a small room with Wi-Fi internet. The line between underground and mainstream is very thin, and a lot of artists have started as underground and then became very popular. This example could be applied to Subcarpați as well, considering their notoriety not only online, but mostly offline. With six concerts in 2010, thirteen in 2011, nineteen in 2012, twenty-six in 2013, this year the band has scheduled thirty-four concerts according to their official website. Although the numbers are increasing, the members’ policy is to have as fewer concerts as they can, and if possible to avoid rehearsals, in order preserve the energy for the public (Mixtopia, 2014). Although the band could be considered mainstream because of its evolution in the past years, marked by concerts at important festivals such as B’estfest or Electric Castle (the latter was recently organised, on the 19th of June 2014, with an attendance of over 20.000 people), the process of marketing and distribution of the material is clearly anti-commercial. Since the band’s creation in 2010, all their records have been posted on the official website 35

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(Subcarpați.com) and can be downloaded free of charge by anyone. Hard copy CDs are not sold, but only given as a gift to the fans that attend the launch of a new album. The reason for this (at least the official one) is that they received folklore for free, as a heritage, and they would like to pass it on in the same way. Another hypothesis could be the fact that they realized the context in which we live in, an online world where everything can be downloaded. The idea of passing things on is very recurrent in the discourse made by Subcarpați and it fits the concept of underground that the band sees as a ‘vein of creative intuition, which always inspired the following generations, or at least one generation’ (Bivol, 2014). Afo thinks that the next generations will realise that people who were there before and built something truly existed (Bivol, 2014). The “mission” of the band to bring back folklore in people’s houses, of course in a modern version, is also stated in the fresh-from-the-oven album Pielea de Găină (Goosebumps) launched on the 13th of June 2014. Noi am adunat de la lume să dăm inapoi Cu asta am crescut așa-i tradiția la noi Din izvorul nesecat ce ne-a fost oferit Am ales câte un cântec și l-am dăruit

We gathered from the people to give back This is the way we were raised, this is our tradition From the inexhaustible spring that we were offered We picked songs little by little and passed them on (Subcarpati, Pielea de Găină, 2014)

The action of gathering old folklore songs or motifs, reinterpret them and pass them on crossed the borders of the Subcarpați albums and gave birth to a compilation called Culese din Cartier (Gathered from the Neighbourhood), launched in 2011, in which 15 different artists contributed with their own mash-ups between traditional songs and modern beats. The album was promoted by Subcarpați and made available online for free. The project Culese din Cartier continued in the years that followed but it was narrowed down to a single individual, Argatu’, a young man from Falticeni (Moldova) that was given the opportunity to publish his works under the aegis of Subcarpați. The compilations Culese din Cartier – Prezinta Argatu’ (Gathered from the Neighbourhood – By Argatu’) volume 1 and 2 received a very positive feedback by the Subcarpați fans, and the third album is to be released this year on the 1st of December, Romania’s National Holiday. The event that hosted the launch of the last two albums of Subcarpați, Underground Folclor and Pielea de Găină is also important because it has almost become a tradition for the band to release new material during this non-profit event and celebration called Street Delivery, whose purpose is to ‘highlight the role of public space, cultural importance and historical memory for a durable development of the city’. According to the official website of 36

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the initiative (streetdelivery.ro) the mission is to reinvent and strengthen the role of public space, by converting the urban landscape in a living space. The motto is to close the streets for cars, open them for the people and transform them in a promenade full of ideas. The term “delivery” is also interesting because it can be used with multiple significations. The common meanings of the word are to ‘hand over’ or ‘to provide’ but the most uncommon one could better fit the idea of the event, namely to ‘save, rescue, or set someone or something free from’ (Oxford Dictionaries). It could be considered an attempt to save the cultural heritage and hand it over to the people that participate. The recent revival of folklore interests not only the music scene but also fashion. Designers have started to integrate folklore in their work. Asked if they associate themselves with people from the fashion world, the members of Subcarpați answered negatively, because they don’t know the aim of these entrepreneurs, and they don’t want to have anything to do with people that are only interested in making money; moreover, they refused to be sponsored by brands for product placements, because it would be against the basic rules of the Subcarpați project (Mixtopia, 2014). Although the members of the band are walking the line between underground and mainstream, they remain loyal to first one. They do not consider underground as being cool or as a fad. For them ‘underground is that place where you struggle as an artist, where you bang your head against the wall, where you crawl until you polish your style and make it your own’ (Bivol, 2014). Their loyalty for the underground part of hip hop culture can also be backed up by their participation at “traditional” rap battles or cyphers. The battles usually consist in a contest between two opponents, where the best improvised discourse wins. The cypher on the other hand is a gathering of several hip-hoppers that take turns in freestyle rapping. Both manifestations are the subject of different videos on the web, manifestations that the members of Subcarpați participate in. Over the past three decades, Hip Hop has developed as a cultural and artistic phenomenon affecting youth culture around the world. For many youth, Hip Hop reflects the social, economic, political, and cultural realities and conditions of their lives, speaking to them in a language and manner they understand. As a result of both its longevity and its cogent message for many youth worldwide, Hip Hop cannot be dismissed as merely a passing fad or as a youth movement that will soon run its course (Alridge & Stewart, 2005, p. 190)

The fact of speaking to the youth in a manner they understand is also an important element in the discourse of Subcarpați. The band combined folkore with beats a young man would understand and would be able to assimilate and digest better. The following pages will be about the same duality between hip-hop and folklore, between city and countryside, but 37

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from a different perspective. The elements will be inserted in a nostalgic frame that works as a catalyser for the Subcarpați phenomenon. Although the subject could have been discussed at the beginning of the study, it could represent a cyclical feature for the paper, that started from the analysis of the countryside and it returns in the same place after a trip to the city.

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5. Nostalgia between urban and rural

Am crescut pe la Romană BNV si prin Titan, mă Prin Dolhasca şi câmpie, Ştiu ce-i aia iasomie. Mă duceam şi prin păduri La bureţi şi la muguri. M-am ferit de heroină Prin spate pe la uzină.

I grew up in Romana In BNV and Titan, yo In Dolhasca, in the fields I know what jasmine is I used to go into the woods To pick mushrooms and offsprings I stayed away from the heroin Behind the factory

Cânt despre copilărie În oraş ori la câmpie Le-am avut pe amândouă Şi nopţi reci şi stropi de rouă

I sing about my childhood In the city or in the countryside I had both Cold nights and drops of dew

Şi-am strâns struguri pentru vin Îmi place Charlie Chaplin Duceam vaca la păscut Mă-ntorceam pe la apus În colţ în 34 În drum spre Baba Novacu Mi-e dor să sau de mâncare În ogradă la animale

And I gathered grapes for wine I like Charlie Chaplin I used to put the cow out to pasture I used to come back at sunset In the back of the 34 bus Heading to Baba Novacu I miss feeding the animals in the yard (Subcarpati, Am crescut pe la Romană, 2010)

The song “Am crescut pe la Romană” (I grew up in Romana) is probably the best metaphor to describe the Subcarpați project. Romana stands for the Roman Square of Bucharest, the most central part of the city. BNV is short for Baba Novac, a neighbourhood in the third district of the capital city, very close to the wider Titan neighbourhood. Besides being a very good example of the relationship countryside – city, the song represents Bean’s memories of his childhood. Bean’s nostalgia for the time of his childhood is the trigger that gave birth to the musical project, as he states in the song “Lăutar de București” (mentioned in chapter 1.1). What nostalgia is exactly can be summarised in the definition given by Svetlana Boym: Nostalgia (from nostos return home, and algia longing) is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy (Boym, 2001, pg. xiii-xiv)

Therefore, nostalgia stems more from a feeling of lack and displacement, rather than from real events. The idea of home, one of the concepts included in the nostalgic phenomenon, is more a mythical home, which speaks of fantasies and romanticized pasts. The urban “home” for the members of Subcarpați during their childhood and adolescence was

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Romana, still a symbolic place for the Romanian children, adolescents and young adults nowadays. The place probably represents the epicentre of every foreign influence that arrives in Bucharest, which then slowly spreads through the city. It is one of the most globalized spots in the capital city, one where a gigantic, triumphant McDonald’s occupies most of the square. Hence, it stands out in an otherwise historical neighbourhood, where the other boulevards highlight a different age in Bucharest’s history, the most representative example being Calea Victoriei where traces of the Little Paris era are clearly visible to any passer-by. Romana, on the other hand, and the boulevard that leads to it, are filled with shops and fast food restaurants that are connected to a new era and to a new type of person. Romana, besides being the meeting point of many western influences, in terms of fashion and music, also represents a meeting spot for people in general (those who are born and raised in Bucharest and the ones that come from outside of it as well). When you have to set up a meeting, a date or a night out, one of the first suggestions would be: “Let’s meet at Romana, in front of Mcdonald’s”. As a place, Romana has not changed very much in the past fifteen years (from the time Bean used to be in high school up until now). But yet something has changed. The times have changed, the generations have changed. Like hip-hop used to be hip years ago, now it seems it is time for the word “hip” to be associated with the term “hipster”, ‘a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream’ (Oxford Dictionaries). Lately, the image of the hipster in Bucharest has detached itself from the original meaning of the word, and everyone that wears a scarf could be considered a hipster. From this perspective Romana has become the “home” of many hipsters and the fact of not being mainstream has become mainstream. Hence, the times have changed, and when the status quo is disturbed, nostalgia arises to replace the lack of stability. This is all connected not to a real physical place, even though ‘at first glance, nostalgia is a longing for a place’, but to ‘a yearning for a different time – the time of our childhood, the slower rhythms of our dreams’. It is a way of coping with a loss of innocence and inner peace that cannot be grasped in modern society. In that regard, one can say that the onset of nostalgia has to do with concepts that the current generation does not even know, since, in reality, ‘nostalgia is rebellion against the modern idea of time, the time of history and progress’. Progress and forced industrialization disrupted a private connection that the individual used to establish with his environment and therefore, with himself. Moreover, nostalgia alludes to a fear of time and death, in that sense keeping track of the past and creating a fairy-tale image around it affords one the luxury of not coming to terms with the present and the future. What a 40

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nostalgic person would want to do is ‘to obliterate history and turn it into private or collective mythology, to revisit time like space, refusing to surrender to the irreversibility of time that plagues the human condition’ (Boym, 2001, p. xv). What better way to fight the irreversibility of time than to return to a place where time does not exists? The archaic character of Dolhasca was previously discussed in relationship with time, and the choice of Romanian tradition as refuge seems to be even more legitimate in the context of underground folklore. The 34 tram is the one that goes from Romana to Baba Novac, representing thus the means to get home for Bean. He got on it and arrived to his physical home. At the same time, he mentions thinking about the traditional and idyllic world of Dolhasca while riding this tram. Therefore, even though he is on his way to one home, the stable, constrictive one in Bucharest, he thought about his other home, Dolhasca, the one where he could get to know another, more poetic universe. Dolhasca is a space still bound by laws that have nothing to do with the laws of modern, industrialized society – those ancient laws of archaic man. Somehow, Dolhasca is a place where time stops, literally and figuratively; literally, because most of the times, villages still look and feel as they did decades ago, creating the illusion of a paradise that does not age. Figuratively, since Bean, like many other children in Romania, grew up and spent his childhood in this village. For him, Dolhasca will forever be associated with childhood. His personal, untainted memories, are trapped in Dolhasca. In that part of the country, he lived the life of the archaic man, unburdened by the anxieties of modern society. Consequently, his identity was not yet fractured while living in Dolhasca, since most identity disruptions take place after childhood. Therefore, his nostalgic feelings about Dolhasca are related to his identity, one inhabited by Dolhasca as well as Baba Novac. Baba Novac, as mythicized by Subcarpați, becomes more than just a street. Filtered through the band members’ nostalgia, it leads the listener onto the path of remembering and it is depicted as having to do with origin, the place where it all began. Baba Novac, alongside with Dolhasca and Romana, represents one the poles that lead to the band’s work. It is no less important than the traditional environment symbolized by Dolhasca, but it accounts for the underground and the rap part of their style. Thus, the band’s identity is split between their nostalgic memories of Dolhasca and the ones brought on by their neighbourhood of Baba Novac. Interestingly enough, it is not only within the limits of the Subcarpați project that nostalgia makes itself known. Lately, there seems to be a collective nostalgia taking over the city of Bucharest and bars that have a retro appeal like Plastilina (Modelling Clay) are on the 41

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rise. These bars are decorated with motifs taken from the Romanian folklore or from traditional Romanian clothing. Not only that, but they serve traditional Romanian cooking, or products that are mostly remnants from before the Revolution, like Eugenia, a biscuit with chocolate filling that is manufactured in Romania; it is the quintessential cheap sweet one could buy. These types of products are in the spotlight again not because they are the best, quality-wise, but because they remind the people of their childhood, of the simple snacks one could get a hold of as a child. What is more, in the countryside these products are not a novelty, but a reality, in that environment they are not retro and a fetish brought on by nostalgia. Hence, they are connected to the countryside and the village. Another example is the Pegas bike, frequently used by villagers, which was rebranded and updated to suit the needs of a modern society that longs for the symbols of its past. The duality between village and city is encapsulated in Subcarpați. Their music, as such, and what it talks about, is a very accurate description of the Romanian society in which life in the countryside is juxtaposed with the one in the city. This duality severs the grasp people have on their identity, leading to a type of collective nostalgia which is ‘in short, the means for holding onto and reaffirming identities which had been badly bruised by the turmoil of the times’ (Davis, 1979, p. 107). What the new type of retro bars and products amount to is a desire to fuse these two identities together, by bringing the village into the city, creating a nostalgic oasis in the middle of a technologically advanced environment. The city thus ‘becomes an alternative cosmos for collective identification, recovery of other temporalities and reinvention of tradition’ (Boym, 2001, p. 76). Furthermore, ‘it is an ideal crossroads between longing and estrangement, memory and freedom, nostalgia and modernity’ (Boym, 2001, p. 76). The tragedy linked to nostalgia is that longing has a highly idyllic character and people’s nostalgic remembrances cannot be trusted, for ‘one is nostalgic not for the past the way it was, but for the past the way it could have been. It is this past perfect that one strives to realize in the future’ (Boym, 2001, p. 351). When analysed objectively, the various nostalgic elements of urban life all point to reinterpretations of the past or of traditions and not to the items themselves. Moreover, in their quest for truth, even the band’s songs tend to romanticise the times and places of their past, as screened through their nostalgic tendencies, because lacking the imaginative abandon of fantasy or the caprice of dreaming, nostalgia at least purports to represent the true places, events, and moods of our past, even if our powers of historical reflection may cause us to question whether “it was indeed that way” (Davis, 1979, p. 47)

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Conclusion

The present study discussed the musical and cultural phenomenon known as underground folklore as being part of a much wider context that is constantly redefining itself. Underground folklore, as it has been analyzed, emerged in a specific time and place, but that does not mean that similar forms of artistic manifestation could not arise in other contexts worldwide. The phenomenon employs various other art forms, among which rap and folklore, both of which were discussed as being powerful evocative elements that are linked to nostalgia and identity. Therefore, the band members’ past and notions of identity went into the creation of this musical genre. However, both their past and their identity are constantly changing and are difficult to define. Nevertheless, when nostalgia is brought into the discussion, the limit between true facts and emotions and fictionalized ones is blurred. Moreover, folklore takes on an important role when there is a perceived threat to an individual or to a nation’s identity. Shifts in identity or the desire to create a new one lead to the incorporation of folklore as the one element that connects people to their past, thus to their essence. For Subcarpati, especially for Bean, folklore and the past are synonymous with Dolhasca, the place that represents his childhood and a part of his dual identity, split between the traditional, edenic environment of the countryside and the urban, constrictive one, represented by Bucharest’s neighbourhoods. In a sense, this dual identity naturally leads to a fragmented one. Since hip-hop is, by definition, an urban culture that emerged in cities, more specifically in neighbourhoods, and since folklore belongs to Dolhasca, an ancient society, both elements being the ones that make up underground folklore, it is clear that Subcarpati’s musical style stems, or tries to stem, from the lost sound, the primordial music that is closer to the pure, traditional societies than the other sounds produced today and from a modern sound, rap, that tries to encapsulate the current way of life and its problems. The duality represented by the city and the countryside has been analyzed not only as being emblematic for the band’s identity, but also for Romania itself. The band’s allure lies in the way it represents the two poles that have been defining Romanian generations for the past decades. An identity caught between the idyllic promise of the countryside that coincides with childhood, and the urban landscape of the city where one grew up, is something that most people can relate to. It will be interesting to see how the phenomenon will evolve, and if it will still be representative for

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future generations as it is for today’s ones. Considering that talks of identity and childhood inevitably lead to nostalgia, the band’s nostalgic tendencies were discussed as being connected to a mythic longing, that makes one desire to return to traditional societies such as Dolhasca, which in reality is a desire to return to the simpler times before the various factors of modern society interfered with man’s sense of identity and security. Given that underground folklore represents the last piece of a larger domino, an analysis of previous elements was necessary. The phenomenon depends on more factors that were each analyzed in a different chapter, all of which could have been transformed into a monograph, but then the focus would have shifted from the main subject. The first chapter describes the process that went into the creation of underground folklore, with special attention given to the relationship between its crucial elements, the old and the new. The conscious or the unconscious blending of these two elements transforms underground folklore into something even more powerful than traditional artistic forms such as folklore which would sound unnatural in today’s society on their own. One could also state the contrary and consider that underground folklore is just a hybrid product of which the dominant part remains hip-hop, a culture that has spread worldwide creating a fad and adhesion based more on a sentiment of “coolness” rather than one of authenticity and necessity of expression. This is where “underground” comes into play and where the difference between underground and mainstream hip-hop becomes relevant. Even though they have been moulded by international and local factors, Subcarpati’s example and specific blend of music are inextricably Romanian, due to their insertion of folkloric elements and the personal attachments infused in their nostalgic lyrics. On the other hand, the music is reactionary as well, and it strives to create a new cultural consciousness that uses the past to try and change the present. Music could be considered more liberal than other art forms and could be defined as something that produces emotion out of emotion. Underground folklore has succeeded in transmitting various feelings, from individual nostalgia to collective memory, and it is a musical style that at least one generation seems to relate to.

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