Turbo-folk is a subgenre of Serbian contemporary pop music that initially developed during the 1990s as a fusion of techno and folk. The music glorified the lavish lifestyle of gangsters such as Željko Ražnatović (a.k.a. "Arkan"), who were allowed to proliferate during the rule of Slobodan Milošević.[1]
Turbo-folk grew in Croatia in part due to the popularity of the Croatian singer Severina's fusion of turbo-folk in her music. Turbo-folk is seen as a part of everyday life in Croatia and serves a means of social release and reaction to the effects of globalisation in Croatia.[2]
Although very popular, turbo-folk is described as pseudo-folklore, while often linking it to Serbian involvement in Bosnian and Croatian conflicts during the nineties.[1] This liberal section of Serbian and Croatian society explicitly viewed this music as vulgar, almost pornographic kitsch, glorifying crime, moral corruption and nationalistxenophobia. In addition to making a connection between turbofolk and "war profiteering, crime & weapons cult, rule of force and violence", in her book Smrtonosni sjaj (Deadly Splendor) Belgrade media theorist Ivana Kronja refers to its look as "aggressive, sadistic and pornographically eroticised iconography".[3][4] Along the same lines, British culture theorist Alexei Monroe calls the phenomenon "porno-nationalism".[5] However, turbo-folk was equally popular amongst the South Slavic peoples during the Yugoslav Wars.[4]
As long as I am the mayor, there will be no nightclub-singers of [cajke] or turbo-folk parades in a single municipal hall.
The resilience of a turbo-folk culture and musical genre, often referred to as the "soundtrack to Serbia’s wars",[7] was and to a certain extent still is, actively promoted and exploited by pro-government commercial TV stations, most notably on Pink and Palma TV-channels, which devote significant amount of their broadcasting schedule to turbo-folk shows and music videos.
Others, however, feel that this neglects the specific social and political context that brought about turbo-folk, which was, they say, entirely different from the context of contemporary western popular culture. In their opinion, turbo-folk served as a dominant paradigm of the "militant nationalist" regime of Slobodan Milošević, "fully controlled by regime media managers".[8] John Fiske feels that during that period, turbo-folk and its close counterpart Serbian Eurodance had the monopoly over the officially permitted popular culture, while, according to him, in contrast, Western mass media culture of the time provided a variety of music genre, youth styles, and consequently ideological positions.[9]
