The disparate sounds of Kal’s music describe a new, post-modern Roma identity that confronts romantic Gypsy clichés. Dragan Ristic, who founded the band with his brother Dushan, says, “We are not living in the past… I’m an urban person, belong to the modern world, [and] go to rave parties… so mixing traditional and urban elements is the best way of presenting our culture.” Garth Cartwright, author of Princes Among Men: Journeys with Gypsy Musicians, notes, “In their wit, imagination, and ability to throw disparate sounds together they mark themselves as both part of the Gypsy tradition and the 21st century lifestyle.” Producer Mike Nielson (who has also produced the likes of Natacha Atlas and Jamiroquai) calls their sound “positive… fresh and invigorating.”
The band takes its name from the word for “black” in the Roma language, evoking the historical and contemporary struggles of their people—racism, exclusion, prejudice, persecution. Since the time their ancestors began wandering west from northern India over 1,000 years ago, Gypsies have been simultaneously scorned and glorified, rejected and romanticized. They are sometimes treated as mythical and magical beings, representing people outside the confines and mundane realities of the everyday world. Contrary to folk myths, Gypsies are a real people and part of a real, enduring culture that has managed to survive despite severe obstacles of circumstance and prejudice. Kal is keenly conscious of this legacy, and uses music as a response.
“The identity Kal carries forward is racially proud yet ethnically inclusive, forward looking while embracing the treasure of the last thousand years of ‘lengo drom’ (long road), a culture determined to operate as equals in the ever-evolving Nu-Europe,” says Cartwright. Precious few role models are available to young Roma; the Ristic brothers were fortunate to have the support of their parents, who benefited from President Tito’s efforts to include the Roma more in Yugoslav society and encouraged Dragan and Dusan to take pride in their heritage while getting an education.
Inspired by their father (to whom the album is dedicated), a schoolteacher who played music and also “the first openly Roma teacher to graduate from teacher’s college,” the Ristic boys have married Roma pride, education, and music by founding the Amala Summer School, a summer cultural exchange program in their home village of Valjevo, Serbia. The total cultural immersion at Amala, which includes homestays with Serbian-Romani families, helps to “break down the wishful and fearful mythology of the Gypsy and replace it with actual knowledge of Romani people, language, history, music, and dance.”
“With this album, Kal aims to set an example to the young Roma musicians across the Balkans that you can be both modern and roots at the same time,” says Dragan. “So many young Roma are just making pop crap because Balkan society, especially Serbian society, has, after the collapse of communism, allowed the lowest common denominator to rule. Many good young musicians compromise their music because they can’t imagine that anyone wants to hear anything but turbo trash. I hope we set an example of young Roma musicians using beats but staying true to Romani culture and music.”
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