While “Hajde” maintains the arrangement and production of Kuqi and Demaj’s “Hajde luj qyqek,” it adds one significant musical element: a man shouting in Romanian between the verses.

Tairović said the idea for this came from her own Romanian heritage. “In the original version, there’s an empty part between the verses. You just hear some rhythm, and we wanted to fill that a little. Now, how to do it? So that it was somehow a little exotic… we brought in Romanian. It really spices it up,” she said.

What Tairović and her team managed to do with this song was to connect listeners across the region to a trans-Balkan culture that exists in the shared sounds of celebration while heightening the exoticness of that culture at the same time: a sure recipe for a mass market hit. The song was so successful that Tairović used the soundscape of “Hajde” as the concept for her new album, the recently released Balkanija.

‘Hajde, play some qyqek’

The recording history of the song can be traced on the internet, but that doesn’t answer the question of where the song really comes from.

“Hajde” has its musical roots in the Balkan musical style qyqek. If you’re not sure what that is, well, neither did TV hosts on Top Channel Albania when they interviewed Demaj in April 2020. As Demaj explained the popularity of his and Kuqi’s song, he also had to explain what qyqek is: a style of music and popular dance in Kosovo that isn’t as well known in Albania.

Qyqek is a word that has almost as much pan-Balkan reach as hajde. Qyqek in Albanian, čoček in Serbian and Macedonian, kyuchek in Romanian. The music and dance is usually associated with the Ottoman past and the Roma musicians who played it then — and whose descendents continue to play it today. The style, with a drumbeat that makes your feet start moving, is particularly popular at weddings and large group celebrations. It is played all over the Balkans (though apparently rarely in Albania) and has different regional variations.

Tairović herself is the daughter of the well-known Roma artist-activist Zoran Tairović (though the Serbian press downplays this fact), but it is unclear to what degree this is part of Tea’s self-identification. Nevertheless, it’s fascinating that a traditionally Roma Balkan musical style was appropriated into a mainstream Albanian wedding song before being appropriated again into a Serbian party song sung by a woman of Roma descent.

While appropriation is today seen as pejorative, it can have neutral or positive connotations as well. Qyqek, or čoček, or kyuchek spread and developed and changed under conditions of open cultural exchange between different groups of people in different geographies. Today, the situation is similar: you just have to buy the copyrights.

Tairović did, presumably from Grajqevci. Though her song relies most heavily on the 2017 rendition of “Hajde luj qyqek” and she cites that title on YouTube, Grajqevci claims the copyright for his 2003 song and has been waging a battle against the covers which he says are unauthorized.

In May 2021, he told Gazeta Metro that he was planning to sue the artists who had not purchased the copyright, and in March 2022 he reiterated that this process was underway. (Notably, he named countries where artists had produced unauthorized copies of his song, but Serbia was not one of them, which suggests that Tairović did indeed purchase the copyright from him.) It’s not clear how Grajqevci’s cases will go — whether he has any legal basis or if the countries where he’s suing have functioning mechanisms to protect author’s rights.

But the song is out there, and in Serbia they aren’t just listening to “Hajde,” but also to “Hajde luj qyqek.” When early-career Serbian crooner Boris Subotić failed to qualify for Serbia’s Eurovision finals this year, he posted an Instagram story of him in a car partying to “Hajde luj qyqek.” For example. The song, in both languages, is getting what it’s owed.

The story of “Hajde” has no straightforward moral; it’s not a sign of some kind of blissful unity between peoples and it’s not a lesson about copyright. But it does show that the region is as musically connected as it has always been, and that this connectedness is experienced through shared sounds. Though Tea Tairović is certainly right about hits — they’re not cabbage — she does seem to understand that tapping in to these shared sounds, ones that resonate sonically and emotionally, might light up something in us all.

Feature image: Arrita Katona / K2.0.

‘Let’s light up the Balkans’

How an Albanian wedding tune became the Serbian song of the summer.

Emily Gray

‘Let’s light up the Balkans’

How an Albanian wedding tune became the Serbian song of the summer.

Emily Gray