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Chalga

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Wikipedia

Chalga (Чалга) is the most common word, used for identifying the Pop folk in Bulgaria, incorporating a blend of Arabic, Turkish, Greek, and Roma (Gypsy) influences, as well as motifs from even flamenco and klezmer music. It is known for repeating musical themes and dance rhythms and its style of dancing called kyuchek in Bulgarian.

History

The word chalga originates in the Turkish word çalgı (pronounced "chal-guh"), which means "musical instrument". Indeed, the movement is derived from the art of the chalgadzhia (derived from the Turkish çalgıcı meaning "musician"), a type of musician who could play virtually any type of music, but added his own distinctive beat or rhythm to the song. Often a chalgadzhia would not be able to read music, but instead played from memory on his caval, (an end-blown flute). Playing in groups at festivals or weddings, these performers initiated the popularization of chalga.

Behind the Iron Curtain

In the socialist period, this genre was held in disfavor by the establishment for many reasons. Such a dissipated, oriental, low class music had no place in a forward-looking, modern socialist state, and when Todor Zhivkov (the last communist leader of Bulgaria) decided to steer a more nationalistic tack in the 1980s, such oriental traditions were regarded as inferior to those with more purely Slavic roots. Chalga also came with a provocative hip-shaking dance and at times lewd lyrics, and thus its morality as well as its origins were considered dubious. It is also possible that, as an art form predominantly practiced and developed by the Roma, racial and ethnic discrimination played a part.

While discouraged in Bulgaria, chalga-like music met less restriction in neighbouring SFR Yugoslavia.

Throughout the Balkans, folk traditions have been modernized. In Greece, pop music incorporated the traditions of laïkó ("popular"), a genre based mainly on the melos of Asia Minor Greeks. Many of its tunes were later borrowed by pop-folk musicians in Bulgaria. Laïkó's relative known as "Skiladiko" is close to early Bulgarian chalga, as exemplified by the Kristal Orchestra and others. In Turkey, arabesque music, a mixture of local and Middle Eastern influences, has gained ground since the 1960s.

Post-Communist reconstriction

In 1989, when the Zhivkov regime fell, restrictions were lifted and the old culture vanished. The "new" and "forbidden" were released. A new generation of musicians grabbed the public spotlight, performing songs that might have led to official sanctions only a year before. As a consequence to that, even Chalga managed to crawl to the mass media. Though it was still widely considered as degenerate music, and some of the old values kept, it managed to gain in popularity in the following decade.

Some critics believe that the movement reached its peak around 1998-1999, and has been replaced by Bulgarian pop-folk. However, it remains a popular genre. Earlier folk divas like Toni Dacheva, the singer of Kristal Orchestra, were followed by stars such as the "Mother of Chalga", Rousse-born Gloriya, (Rousse is a Bulgarian city on the Danube) onto the scene; pop-folk legends Desi Slava, Ivana, Aneliya, and others all became wide-known names. Several recording studios, headed by Payner and Planeta, pump out a steady stream of tracks every week on dedicated, hugely popular TV channels.

Chalga in the new century

By the 2000s, chalga's popularity increased, overtaking such genres as Serb and Greek pop music in popularity..

Among the other styles competing (and in some cases merging) with chalga (Ustata, rapper, and Sofi Marinova, ethnic Roma singer of chalga, made a duet) are most notably rap and hip hop music, represented by artists and groups like Dope Reach Squad, Upsurt, Misho Shamara and Spens. Rap has also gained commercial success in Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) and Varna, as well as in many televised videos.

Today chalga record companies collaborate and work with partners mainly from the other Balkan countries, making this type of Bulgarian music popular both in its home - Bulgaria, and abroad in the Balkans.

Criticism

Chalga is popular in so-called "chalga dance clubs" and chalga oriented pubs, called krychma (кръчма). Although it is widely acclaimed by the masses (and by ungrounded foreigners) as an interesting modern approach to pop and a great way for entertainment, there is a significant intellectual and to some extent public dislike of the genre. It is often criticized by a great mass of people, as tawdry, having rather loose morals, shocking outlook of singers and having too much, for the traditional Bulgarian European tastes, Eastern, Arabic roots, and for its ranging from trivial to sometimes ridiculous lyrics. Example of chalga kyuchek lyrics:

Another example:

Chalga texts vary in language, most often they are sang in Bulgarian, but sometimes it is a mix of languages - Bulgarian and Turkish, Bulgarian and Roma, even Bulgarian and Serbian. Some song are sang in Roma.

The controversy about chalga has led to some musical and linguistic research, and to a great number of public discussions.

Chalga proponents often say it is the new Bulgarian folk, though it's obvious it has no conection to the national folkore roots, and it's only foklore elements are oriental and roma.

Bibliography

Седемте гряха на чалгата. Към антропология на етнопопмузиката, Розмари Стателова, ISBN 9540115361 (in Bulgarian) (translation of the title: The seven deadly sins of chalga. Toward an anthropology of ethnomusic, Rozmary Statelova)