There are a few things I like to talk about when we drink.  Like everyone, I like to gossip about the people we know.  I like to talk about that attractive woman at the other table.  The other thing I like to talk about is art.

But I think we misunderstood each other a bit, because we ended up talking about entertainment, not art.  Maybe it’s my fault—I sometimes get the two confused myself.  Actually, in hindsight I think we were having two arguments at the same time.  This happens a lot to me in Kosovo.

Me: “I find a lot of the art in Kosovo to be rather derivative.  Often it emulates a recognizably western or Turkish style (the pop bands), or a firmly established classical or modern tradition (the theater and visual arts).  There doesn’t seem to be a move towards an authentically ‘Kosovo voice.’” ¹

You: “There’s no middle class in Kosovo, and a middle class is needed to support art.”

Me: “Let’s get one more rakia!”

What I Should Have Said Instead: “Art doesn’t need a middle class.  Entertainment is a luxury, but art, for those who make it, is not.  Entertainers make entertainment for the money.  Artists make art for the art.  Sometimes artists are entertainers, but often they are not.  There have always been impoverished artists—they keep making art despite their poverty.  I hope you’re not telling me that there’s a dearth of original art in Kosovo because the pay is bad!  Of course the pay is bad!  It always has been so for the vast majority of artists.” ²


This second argument is one that we had time and time again, whether we talked about art, politics or the media.  I’ve translated it below.

You: “There’s no middle class in Kosovo, and a middle class is needed to support art.”

Translation: A functioning economy is the key to everything.

Me: “Let’s get one more rakia!”

Translation: A little passion can sometimes change the world too.

What I Should Have Said Instead: “Are you saying that middle-class people have better taste?  But if that were true, then do you explain Lead Belly?  Maybe you are arguing that middle class people have more disposable income, that their children are less concerned with day-to-day things, and they have time to develop the angst and discontent, and also the perspectives that can breed art.  But great art has come about even amidst the worst poverty the world has ever bred!

“Poor places have produced the most important music in the world.  Poor places gave birth to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Bob Marley, Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly too (and that’s not accounting for the poor inventors of Africa, Europe, Asia and South America.) The first rap record was recorded by poor people, and the first jazz record and the first blues record too.   Baile funk (Brazil), Narcocorrido (Mexico), Tango (Argentina), and so on… ³


The next time we are drinking together, I’m going to tell you what I expected to find when I moved to Kosovo.  I expected punk. 

I thought there would be young people angry about their situations, their thwarted ambitions.  I thought they would want music that screamed and ranted and rocked.  I thought that they would be playing songs about their lives.

And I thought that the music would be acoustic.  Why plug into amps and speakers when the power might go out any second?  Why not instead draw on the rich acoustic tradition of the Balkans and create a new music for a new generation – a generation which makes up half the population of Kosovo?  Why try to make something that sounds Euro or American instead?

But instead the bands played songs about lives in the west: about western ghettos, western girls and so on.  They played Lionel Ritchie.  They played Deep Purple, and a hundred other songs that had nothing to do with their lives.  They played the same songs that played over every stereo in Kosovo.  They played these songs because they preferred to ignore the power cuts, the unemployment, the ambitions and situations—they played these songs because they wanted to entertain, and their audiences wanted to be entertained.  They didn’t want to get hurt by any art.  Great art is surprising.  It can shock you emotionally and hurt your feelings.  Often this is what keeps great artists poor.  Perhaps Kosovars don’t really feel like they need that right now.  Maybe they just prefer being entertained.

I know—you probably disagree with me.  Maybe you’re going to tell me about a lot of art I don’t know about.  That’s OK.  Go ahead and post their links below.  Or better yet, instead of writing me another angry email, write me a song instead.  Write me a song about how foreigners misinterpret Kosovo society.  Write me a song about your homeland, about how you really feel about it—the good things AND the bad.  Write me a song about corruption, about your family, about your girlfriend, or the boyfriend that your family won’t let you date anymore.  Write me a song about the way internationals have screwed up Kosovo, or about how you can’t find a job.  Write me a song about how hard your parents work, or about how lazy your professor is. 

 

Write me a song about sui generis, 1244 or six points, about beggars, power cuts and burek. 

Maybe it won’t be a good song.  Maybe it won’t be entertaining.  But it very well might be art. ⁴

 

Blackbird is an American artist living in Kosovo.

_____________

 

1) It’s true that I am making myself sound rather academic and well-spoken here: more well-spoken than I probably was after a few shots of rakia and a few rounds of beer.  Consider it a writer’s prerogative.  At least for the length of this column, let’s pretend that I’m brilliant when drunk.
 
2) Consider Lead Belly, who was born poor and stayed that way.  Now, plenty of folks sang his songs later, held onto his rhythm and style, but Lead Belly was born poor and he stayed poor—and he kept making art anyways.  Artists might be working class people themselves, like Melville, or the Beatles.  They might be middle class, like Kafka.  They might be dirt poor like Lead Belly.  They might be successful as entertainers in their lifetimes, like the Beatles.  But Melville and Kafka died poor, like Lead Belly, largely because the middle class wasn’t buying what they were selling.  That didn’t make them bad artists.  It’s true that you need a middle class to sell entertainment, but to make art you really only need artists.

3) Those poor inventors didn’t make up art out of thin air: they took influences from their pasts, and from the cultures around them – but then they did something really new with it.  Marley blended Motown with Jamaican rhythms and lyrics about the poverty around him.  Lead Belly was his own band—it was all he could afford—and he wrote songs about modern events (The Titanic) that addressed modern issues (racism).  (And, in 1992, when authorities forbade the playing of an anti-war song, members of the band Rimtutituki rented a truck and drove the streets of Belgrade playing it anyways. All these people made art despite opposition – economics were not their sole concern.)

4) Suggested listening: Lead Belly   - Woody Guthrie   - Patti Smith – Bob Dylan – James Brown – Leonard Cohen – John Jacob Niles – Wire – Son House – Television – Mission of Burma – The Raincoats