BACK TO THE BALKANS

MY FIRST BOOK WILL BE RE-PUBLISHED IN 2026: THE NEW EDITION'S GOING TO PROVIDE AN EVEN DEEPER DIVE INTO BALKAN ROMA MUSIC/SOCIETY.

The hoard: UK, German & French editions (+soundtrack CD). Some people post photos of their kids, sad guys like me show off their books…

In 2005 Princes Amongst Men: Journeys With Gypsy Musicians was published by Serpents Tail, an independent UK publisher. This was my first book and the result of a long fascination with Eastern Europe and the people we call the “Gypsies”.

Princes Amongst Men was well received with 2 UK editions, followed by French and German translations (typically, the Germans did the best job when it came to publishing a book that is a thing of beauty). And a standalone soundtrack CD was issued by Berlin’s Asphalt Tango Records - I guess mentioning a CD dates things but, hey, I still both play and purchase CDs.

My desire to share my knowledge/enthusiasm for Balkan Roma music/culture - PAM details my travels through Serbia, Macedonia, Romania and Bulgaria (4 nations with the richest reservoirs of Gypsy music making in East Europe) - ensured I hosted a Gypsy Film Festival at Brixton’s Ritzy cinema (3 separate festivals over 3 years) and organised and DJ-ed at a monthly night in the Ritzy’s upstairs bar for 15 years.

The Ritzy night started out as only DJs but I soon realised it needed more to pull people in. So I started booking musicians - Suzy & Matt from She’Koyoch, then a fledgling Balkan klezmer band, were my first booking - and I went on to host the late and very great Wizz Jones (3 times!), Big Joe Louis, Balamuc, Charlie Harper alongside other noted artists, visiting international artists, youthful talents and more.

Some of the nights were rammed (always free entry) and raucous, while two separate country music duos failed to attract an audience. One of these duos even got heckled by drinkers… that evening was memorable, but not in a good sense. My budget was tiny so, on occasion, I had to book artists I realised might not light up Brixton.

This is She’Koyoch, the foremost British Balkan/klezmer band. I was honoured to have them play at my Ritzy night. If you ever get the opportunity to see them make sure you do!

I also encouraged Florence, my then girlfriend and a booking agent for Americana artists, to start booking Balkan artists: this meant I got involved in the hands on ordeal of promoting/collecting/overseeing musicians, many of whom spoke almost no English (and sometimes travelled without a tour manager). Anyone who thinks working in the music biz is all high times, well, think again.

Which is to say, I surely got a lot more involved with my book’s subject than most first time authors. Obsessive fanboy that I am, this is how I felt it should be: don’t simply go and interview artists, then never engage with them again. No, do what you can to champion their artistry.

Princes Amongst Men was my first book and, since then, I’ve written another 6 - of which 3 are on British record shops… I know, how obsessive/niche can you get? Plenty of journalism on Gypsy music/Balkan travel-society has flowed from my keyboard but I’ve not written another book on the region (or its musicians).

At one point I did intend to - more an overview of travelling through the greater Balkan region than a focus on the Roma - and got as far as undertaking a six week research trip. This involved everything from trekking through Albania’s Accursed Mountains, to visiting Srebrenica (where the genocide of Bosniac Muslim men and boys was undertaken by Serbian troops in 1995). But my agent had moved on and I couldn’t find another who showed any interest, so I let things rest. If Substack had existed back then I might well have written the damn thing here!

I interviewed Saban Bajramovic at his home in Nis, Serbia, in 2003. He was widely celebrated as the “king of Gypsy song” and had lived a wild life. Saban passed on in 2008.

Anyway, books are a titanic amount of work for small advances - that is if, like me, you are writing niche nonfiction. So I wasn’t too bothered by this. And, although I have kept returning to the region (most recently travelling in Bosnia-Croatia-Montenegro in 2023) I’d not given a great deal of thought to writing my experiences up.

Then, earlier this year, I heard from Ion Mills, publisher of Oldcastle Books. He wondered if I wanted to bring Princes Amongst Men back with a new edition (when books go out of print the author can reclaim the rights. And I’d done that for PAM). Yes, please.

Oldcastle is an even smaller publisher than Serpents Tail. And the advance offered was pitiful (if I dwell on money its because, as a self-employed writer, I pay my bills via being paid for my words - if you are a paying subscriber to the Yak, many, many thanks for your support. If not, well, do consider becoming one: serious journalism is under siege by the tech bros right now).

Anyway, Princes Amongst Men was always more of a reflection of my passions for music and travel and social justice - and expounding on such - than any kind of cash cow. As my interest and enthusiasm in both the Balkans and the music of the region’s Roma people has never waned, I signed the contract Ion sent.

Also: no other book had been published that covers similar terrain/subject matter (ie no one else is foolish enough to tackle such an uncommercial subject matter). Time then to resurrect PAM - it will be 21 when republished next year. Appropriately, it should be bigger and bolder, older and wiser.

Which is to say I’ve spent almost every waking hour in recent months (when not in the US South or Italy) working on updating and developing Princes Amongst Men. I filed to Ion yesterday - surely time for a celebration!

The new edition of PAM will see the book having extended from 75,000 words to 120,000 - yes, its grown up. The added muscle consists of interviews and travel reporting I conducted in those 4 troubled nations after PAM was published, and an epic Afterword that looks at all kinds of developments in Balkan Gypsy music making, both in the region and Western bands and DJs who have attempted to play - and to differing levels - profit from such.

Get this: 22 years ago, when I spent much of 2003 researching PAM in the Balkans, cassettes were still the main medium for listening to local musicians. Now YouTube allows for the checking of even the most obscure wedding band. Quite a difference. Also, back then Bulgaria and Romania weren’t part of the EU.

Since R&B joined large numbers of those nations’ citizens have landed in the UK, including a decent number of Roma. Not that this wasn’t already underway (from Poland, Slovakia etc), but its certainly been interesting to watch how the “Gypsy Invasion”, as The Sun/Mail/Express thundered would come about, played out. And how the arrival of East European workers in the UK fired up the Brexit xenophobe vote.

This is Azis, a remarkable Bulgarian Roma singer of chalga and gay icon. He will likely feature on PAM 26’s cover.

Everything changes and many of the musicians I interviewed for the 2005 edition of PAM have died. Taking their place are young musicians, often employing a far more digital approach to music making, none have yet found a Western audience. CDs - which were how the region’s music was sold in the West - barely exist today. Indeed, the collapse of CD sales (in no way replaced by streaming or touring income) has, in its own way, built an invisible wall that stops new music from the Balkans being widely heard beyond the mahalas it is made in.

Thus for PAM 26 there has been a huge amount of information to convey. Thankfully, I’ve good friends on hands to help with my research - none more so than linguist/translator Nick Nasev, whose Nickipedia is one of my favourite Substacks (packed with fascinating info’ on the Balkans, how could it not be?), while Henry Ernst (Berlin/Bucharest) and Bojan Djordjević (Belgrade) helped update me on developments regarding the major artists they work with. Others have also contributed. I’m extremely grateful for all of their help - books like this rely on the hive mind to ensure information is accurate and up-to-date.

Which is to say the myriad hours I put into rewriting and developing Princes Amongst Men hasn’t felt like a chore. Instead, I’m gratified to have the opportunity to, not only bring my first book back to the world, but retool it with new characters and information.

Re-reading and re-writing ensured one major thought stuck in my mind: considering the West, which has forever thought itself so “civilised” compared to the Balkans, is now increasingly Balkanised: I’d like to think PAM is not just a primer in musical excellence but also a guide to how the very worst people play on prejudice and ignorance, so to rise to power.

I hope its OK for me to say that I love this tome, my homage to Europe’s largest minority, a people who, to this day, continue to be stigmatised and discriminated against. While Balkan Roma might sing in a different tongue to those we are familiar with, make music that has Turkish, Persian and Indian elements (as opposed to Anglo-American references), it is full of remarkable riches. Listen and you will find beauty here. Inevitably, we have more in common than you might imagine.

Princes Amongst Men: Journeys With Gypsy Musicians will be published in spring 2026. While I don’t intend to replicate the Gypsy film festival and DJ night, I’ll certainly consider hosting an occasional event. And Yak readers will hear about it first.

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Here’s Esma Redzepova, the Queen of the Gypsies, in the 1960s, surrounded by her husband and bandleader Stevo and the boys they trained up to play with them. Esma was a remarkable individual who passed on in 2016.