The troubling world of gypsy rappers and their gangster fans
The New Gypsy Kings Inside Birmingham Children’s Hospital
LISTEN out for these floor-fillers at your next family wedding — God Gave Us Live, What A Miracle What A Wonderful and Kiss Me On My Cheek. You won’t be able to miss them: they sound like Ali G rapping over the mix-tape from a Greek restaurant, performed at a drunken karaoke party.
The singer frequently throws in extra verses that don’t rhyme, to extol his friends with lyrics like, ‘Big Marco, we love him so much, he has killed many enemies, but his wife Maria is in prison, we miss her every day.’
These are the timeless hits of Adrian Minune, also known as Adrian the Miracle. At 4ft 10in, he looks like a cut-price Danny DeVito, and he dresses like a circus clown in salmon-pink checked suits. The music he sings is called manele, an electro-pop version of traditional Romanian gypsy song, and Adrian invented it.
This was the soundtrack of awardwinning film-maker Liviu Tipurita’s documentary, The New Gypsy Kings (BBC2). The innocuous title led us to expect guitar-strumming flamenco versions of Volare and My Way, but what we got was a glimpse of the Roma gangster world, where gaptoothed hoodlums show off by throwing wads of money at each other.
In a sober moment, manele star Florin Salam admitted that, a few years ago, his family were riding around in donkey carts. Now he drives a Ferrari. His wealth doesn’t come from record sales or merchandise: €500 notes are showered over him in nightclubs while he literally sings the praises of his benefactors.
And where does that money come from? Tipurita did not probe too closely. The singers protested that they were too busy making music to ask each guest how he earned his cash — and the hoodlums, staggering around the dancefloor or slumped over tables clutching bottles, didn’t seem in the mood for questions.
The only hints came from embittered older musicians, left behind by the manele craze. Their folk songs are being forgotten: no bridegroom wants to hear 200-yearold tunes on a wheezy accordion when his wedding guests are yelling for Roma rap.
One elderly singer, living in a oneroom hovel in north-east Romania, said her village was almost deserted — everyone had gone to London, where the benefits and healthcare were far better than anything Eastern Europe could offer.
Another man complained he had made a small fortune begging on the streets of Norway, but he’d been ripped off by people smugglers.
The director did not draw the obvious conclusion, but it’s clear where the gangsters get the barrowloads of banknotes they throw around — the money comes pretty much straight out of our pockets.
The best musical moment of the evening came quite unexpectedly during Inside Birmingham
Children’s Hospital (C4). Anxious teenager Ellie, who had been struggling with the urge to selfharm, was waiting to see a specialist with her dad, Gary.
Producing a mobile phone, she announced that she wanted to use the last dregs of her battery listening to her favourite band, Queens Of the Stone Age. Gary approved. The Queens are an oldfashioned dad-rock combo, and the track, Smooth Sailing, is a barnstormer.
Director Mark Williamson cranked up the volume, and cut together a brilliant collage of clips from all the waiting rooms across this sprawling hospital, so that the patients seemed to be joining in a giant rave. It was a moment of rare relief in an emotionally intense documentary that was much more about parenthood than illness.
One young couple were barely holding each other together as their baby daughter went into theatre for an op on her hare lip. Another mum was coaxing her stroppy 17-year-old to stop pretending she already knew it all and to listen to the consultants for once.
Meanwhile, dad Gary and 14-year-old Ellie were still waiting to see a doctor. The average delay, they were told, was five-and-a-half hours. ‘It’s good to be able to spend some quality father- daughter time, in a hospital ward,’ he joked.
Sometimes, a sense of humour is all that keeps you alive.