We happily say goodbye to the year 2022! We will remember it as the year in which our first album was released, as the year when our videos became viral, the year in which we organized the first body music festival in Serbia and the region, but also as the year in which we had just seventeen performances. Two more performances before the end of the year, a total of nineteen. So, goodbye 2022 and nice to meet you 2023, preferably: live!
Happy Holidays!
Debut album RikaTaka, New Balkan Rhythm
We are proud that our first album RikaTaka, New Balkan Rhythm published by CPL Music reached the seventh place on the World Music Charts Europe in December 2022, according to music journalists and critics! This, apart from ours, is certainly also the work of our publisher, as well as the entire team that worked on the album. We started our journey in 2018 with the first song we recorded with Goran Vujičin at the MrV production studio Uči me, majko, karaj me (Teach me, mother, scold me) – it took a long time, because we recorded the album with our own investments.
Listen to the album on digital platforms
We would like to thank Višnja Obradović, Goran Vujičin, Alisa Dinjaški, Dragan Radović, Goran Panić, Jelena Nedeljković, Jasmina Grković, Marija Opalić and Budislav Vlajkov.
Buy the CD from online CPL Musicshop
We were lucky that Marija Vitas noticed us and connected us with CPL Music. Our label entered the top five at WOMEX this year, and the Divanhana album they released was named album of the year by Songlines magazine, a prestigious English music magazine.
Not related to the album, but related to future performances, we are happy to be part of the MOST Music project. It is a European project created by a network of world music experts from the music industry and we are in the Balkan Music Export part of it. In November, we were on training in Sofia, hosted by Bulgarian Music Association, listening to lectures related to the music industry, management, agency, marketing, positioning in the music industry, but the most important thing is that we got to know many wonderful people: the musicians who are with us in the program, as well as the people from the music industry. This project also provides us with mentoring support: we are lucky to work with Anna Mašátová, who runs the Czech artist management and booking agency from Prague, apromotions.
MOST Music is a complex European strategy for Balkan world music, supported by Creative Europe, a program of the European Commission for the support of culture and the audiovisual sector – www.mostmusic.eu.
Music album RikaTaka, New Balkan Rhythm No 7 in World Music Charts Europe December 2022
Find it: digital platforms or the web shop of CPL Music
New Balkan Rhythm – first body music festival in Serbia and the region
The first edition is behind us… For the next year, apart from the team that we don’t want to change, we have an idea for new lecturers and a surprise music group, which would open the festival. We will also move the festival date to the end of the summer, so that it is on your way, before or after you go on vacation. More information coming soon!
Workshops of body music
This year we also held several nice workshops: of course, the ones at the New Balkan Rhythm festival are especially dear to us, but we also enjoyed the workshops within the Bina mira project, as well as the workshop in Samobor, and the New Balkan Rhythm online workshops in English language.
And more…
This year, like many before, we tried to build bridges and connections. That’s why we ran the Twinning project with the great Cirkultura circus association and connected Samobor and Sremski Karlovci. We got to educate the whole region about body music and body percussion. We fought gentle, musical, artistic wars with the haters on social networks: they gave us hate, we gave them songs.
And we connected the music of the Balkans with the music of South and North America, Europe and Africa at the New Balkan Rhythm festival, and, perhaps more importantly: we connected many wonderful people from Serbia and the world with our music and art.
Body music is the art of community, and community is what people need most today: closeness, beauty, understanding. And support! Thank you very much for the support we received from you this year, especially during the crowdfunding campaign on the Dobri Dabar platform.
Be ready to join us again in 2023 for the crowdfunding campaign of the second New Balkan Rhythm!
We continue to rely on each other and make this world good and beautiful.