Žur is more than just an album; it is a portal to a bygone era. Now, after more than four decades, this cult classic is reborn, shimmering anew on the vinyl grooves, courtesy of Everland Music.

There are certain albums that transcend mere entertainment to become cherished artifacts of cultural heritage. Žur is undeniably one such gem, a luminous beacon of Yugoslavian disco funk that has captivated hearts and hips since its original release in 1981. Boban Petrović is a legend of Belgrade’s sophisticated disco funk scene from the late ’70s and early ’80s. Back in the second half of the ’70s, Boban started one of the first disco clubs in Belgrade, and he was one of the biggest organizers of private house parties. Boban’s legacy looms large, his name synonymous with the pulsating rhythms and infectious melodies that defined an era.

With meticulous care and artistry, Grammy-nominated sound engineer Jessica Thompson has breathed new life into Žur, ensuring that its effervescent spirit remains as potent as ever. Each track, a testament to Boban’s boundless creativity and unwavering passion for music, resonates with a vitality that defies the passage of time. But Žur is more than just an album; it is a testament to the indomitable human spirit that finds solace and joy in the rhythms of the night. Through Boban’s music, we are transported to a world of glittering disco balls and pulsating dance floors, where every beat is a celebration of life itself.

<a href="https://everland-music.bandcamp.com/album/ur">Žur by Boban Petrović</a>

As we delve into the depths of Žur, we are reminded of Boban’s larger-than-life persona, a man who effortlessly straddled the line between party-maker and philosopher, between hedonism and altruism. His journey, marked by triumphs and tribulations, is woven into the very fabric of this album, a timeless testament to the power of music to transcend boundaries and unite souls.

Pre-order Special Package Žur here!
Pre-order Žur here!

“Cosmopolitan Smile of the Last Belgrade Player” by Bege Fank

The name “Boban Petrović” had been with me even before I got involved with DJ-ing and long before I showed any interest in researching music and writing about it. Back in 1995 I was a regular Belgrade teenager who just got into Rap, Funk and Soul music. I was also interested in sports, albeit not as obsessed with it as I used to be ever since the end of the ’80s. I remember reading articles in sports magazines regularly about an extravagant millionaire from Belgrade who bought Atletico Marbella, gave away his brand new Lamborghini Countach to former Red Star’s striker Vladan Lukić (for scoring two goals against Real Madrid) and got three trucks with tanks full of free beer for all the fans at the stadium. From 1996 onwards, I began establishing myself in music and as an integral part of this journey I started hearing stories about Slobodan “Boban” Petrović as the symbol of Yugoslav and Belgrade Funk and a flamboyant member of the global jet set.

One of the things I’ve learned from Boban throughout the years is to always expect the unexpected and to be cool no matter what mind-blowing information or situation comes up.

What else could I’ve learned after he asked me to do a mashup of his “Djuskaj” and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” just half an hour before we stepped on stage and performed in front of 500 people at the magical 4th Belgrade Funk Congress?! Not to mention that we played it to illustrate Boban’s incredible story about a party in New York City that happened in the year 2000. A party involving many celebrities and Mark Ronson himself who, as the official DJ, played “Djuskaj” a dozen times per Wesley Snipes’ request. Allegedly, years after this, Ronson got “inspired” by it to create the smash hit “Uptown Funk”. To understand Boban Petrović and his art, a true bobanologist simply must match Boban’s coolness, there are no shortcuts.

As a matter of fact, I had to be this cool two times in the last few months. First time was handling the surprise when Nenad Borović and Dr. Smeđi Šećer approached me with an offer I couldn’t refuse – to write these liner notes for such a seminal album. I needed it for the second time while I was conducting the interview with Boban Petrović which would hopefully shed new light on the Žur LP in the context of his extraordinary biography. Without prewritten material, I intentionally went into a full-on freestyle mode right from the start of our conversation. Relying on my knowledge of Boban’s life, art and career, I was hoping to come up with questions that will provoke the most revealing answers in the heat of the moment.

The first one already hit the jackpot. Asking Boban Petrović whether he’d describe himself as a fan of soccer, music, parties, long legs or Rolls Royce, elicited the most sincere and on point self assessment: “I’m all of that but, in the first place, I’d say that I’m a talented ‘smoke and mirrors’ seller, although in a positive manner”. That’s exactly all I ever needed to hear from him though I wasn’t aware of it before I heard this. Naturally, it invoked famous Belgrade slang idioms of “having a good chewing gum” and “selling a chewing gum” as used for a person having a good story and knowing how to convey it so that the listener instantly becomes a believer.

Boban Petrović’ story selling and seducing abilities brought us straight to “Prepad”, the opening track of Žur and an anthem in its own right that sets in motion the whole “libretto” of the album, as the author himself suggested. However, his prepad or sudden approach towards an attractive girl on Belgrade streets (as described in the lyrics) is not just the foundation of Žur but I believe, the backbone to all of Boban’s achievements in business and social life.

This is not just because these “approached” girls were later attending his parties, turning each one of those into “the place to be” by their sheer presence, resulting in promoting Boban to party king for whom all the doors are wide open. More than that, there simply seems to be something superhuman about the social and emotional intelligence of the man who was once able to get in the elevator at the ground floor of Politika’s building, meet an unknown girl in it and talk her into “being down for whatever” before the elevator even reached the top floor. (And Boban really pulled that off as witnessed and told by one of his favorite musicians and my great late friend, legendary Nenad Stefanović “Japanac”.)

Miloš Antić a.k.a. “Miško Ufuriško”, Boban Petrović’ longtime companion and a colourful character himself, provides more insights on the subject. The man whose nickname translates to “Mickey Sneak-in“ – a title earned for his ability to literally sneak in at every gathering, whether it’d be some Belgrade house party, Jimi Hendrix’ backstage or Studio 54 at its peak – talks candidly about the “rules of approaching”. In fact, during our interview Boban repeated one of the basic rules that I first heard from Miško. “You should be approaching an unknown girl on the street with a smile on your face and head on, never from behind.“ As the tip of the iceberg, this streetwise rule indicates that a whole system of principles for successful social interactions was developed among Boban Petrović and his closest allies.

There is a striking resemblance between Boban’s approach and the way African American players used to “turn out” girls by their cool pose, words and appearance. However, even more similarities to the ways of Black players and hustlers in general, appeared during his business conquests in the mid-80s. In his book Rokanje 2 (Long legs studio D.O.O, Beograd, 2020) Boban Petrović opens up about his first big money adventures in London. He tells us how he bought an Armani suit from a Belgrade hustler for a tenth of its value and rented a luxurious apartment on Harrington Court which he couldn’t afford. He also shares the stories about buying his first Rolls Royce and negotiating the best offer for the first available Vodafone mobile phone. It’s precisely what Black hustlers called “setting up one’s front” – fundamentally faking it ‘til you make it by investing in props to improve your appearance that will pay off with interest down the road.

Though one might say that these are all fallible interpretations, the concept of “Blackness” is definitely crucial for Boban Petrović’ worldview. During our conversation I brought up his statement from one of the interviews he gave around the time Žur LP originally dropped. He had been bragging and boasting about being a great dancer. So good actually that if Black guys would’ve seen him on the dance floor they wouldn’t believe that a White man could dance like that. Boban confirmed the quote and described a few situations that have taken place in New York, London and clubs worldwide in which he was the last man standing, killing it on the dance floor together with the prettiest Black girl in the room while all other Black dancers gradually gave up. While listening to these stories, I couldn’t help but visualize the face of Ike Turner when Boban danced with his wife Tina at the party in Slavija Hotel, after her first concert in Belgrade in 1974 – the scene Miško Ufuriško described to me in detail during one of our previous conversations.

On the other hand, Boban stated that there are not many White funkateers who have the right touch. When he was telling me about the magnificent late Belgrade drummer and his friend Radovan “Raša” Đelmaš, his ultimate compliment for Đelmaš’ drumming style was that “he had the touch, as if he was a Black man”. Hence, I believe it’s safe to conclude that Boban perceives himself as a student of the great Black musicians and the whole Black culture. He admires and respects the culture but he’s also challenged by it in the healthiest way imaginable. To be sure that you are cool and that you’ve mastered the music, the party and the dance, you simply should be on par with the best at doing it.

As a matter of fact, that wasn’t the end of our talk about Blackness as Boban went on speculating about his own origins. He told me he was wondering many times if he has some kind of “exotic” blood in his veins and presumed that he perhaps has Romani ancestors. I reminded him of his earliest childhood years spent among Romani people at Jatagan mala, a mystical and somewhat mythical Belgrade shanty town that was teared down in the 1960s. Boban showed me knife scars he got in some fights there and sold me the beautiful “chewing gum” about his first musical steps among Romani children, his childhood friends. Banging on the table he demonstrated the difference between the “flat” Mersey beat and the classic Romani/Oriental rhythm with more of a downbeat feel to it and some interesting accentuations. He then went on to conclude that he was accepted by the Romani kids for he shared with them the same sense of rhythm.

Our focus then naturally shifted to “Djuskaj”, his greatest hit and arguably, the centerpiece of the Žur LP because of its emphasis on music and dancing as the essential elements of the party. Talking about the lyrics, I asked Boban is the rhyme “Image and text are kings / Musicians go on and recite, that’s a real gift” perhaps one of the earliest evocations to Rap and rapping. He answered that it can be interpreted as such but added that he intended it as a critique of Yugoslav music critics and their favorites, the “Rock philosophers”. They were the authors who propelled their careers by making politically charged and rebellious songs, while diminishing the importance of music and the significance of its rhythm and danceability.

Continuing our conversation, Boban Petrović turned my attention to his song “Kandidati mandati” that was created even before he heard “Rapper’s Delight” or rapping as such. Just another thing he stated completely cool and calm as if it wasn’t another astonishing piece of information. In this song, officially published for the first time as a bonus track on the Žur CD repress from 2008, Boban rapped direct and funky lyrics that addressed the failures of politicians and public policies of socialist Yugoslavia. Although there is a slight contradiction in doing a song like this and, at the same time, criticizing “Rock philosophers” in “Djuskaj” for their politically engaged lyrics, this song still holds its own. This was, as well, proven in the funkiest way imaginable when Boban’s wife Jelena Mihailović, (a then member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia) recited the lyrics of “Kandidati mandati” in a publicly broadcasted Assembly session back in 2020!

Profound insights concerning lyrics of “Djuskaj”, encouraged me to ask Boban Petrović about a remark he made in one of his earliest interviews. In it he mentioned “long fingers” as an important symbol related to “Svetski osmeh”. Since it didn’t appear anywhere in the song’s lyrics, I asked him if there is perhaps an unpublished alternate version of the track. He denied it but went on to explain the matter in detail.

Boban’s insight of “long fingers” as the most prominent feature of partygoers’ body talk, a gesture of communicating using your hands, takes us back to his social and emotional intelligence and his mastery of reading the signs in a live setting. However, in the party context there is not just one girl to approach and understand, but a whole bunch of people. There’s also an added collective emotional value to be recognized, the one that makes the party the ultimate spiritual gathering. “A quiet nook, a feeling of intimacy and friendship / Total chaos, cosmopolitan smile, gentle hands / a lot of noise and love as the open sky”. Boban’s eyes shine while he recites the chorus of “Svetski osmeh”, his definite take on the idea of the party or, simply put, Žur itself. Then he heartwarmingly recollects the sounds, images and feelings from his childhood birthday parties. The first innocent romances and his first DJ experiences of playing Bobby Solo’s “Una Lacrima Sul Viso” and Rita Pavone’s records to his friends. As he eventually starts singing Bobby Solo’s classic, there’s no more doubt about the origins of the emotions disclosed in those slow jams found on Žur LP.

Furthermore, Boban Petrović elaborated the difference between the types of parties. He stated that when considering the aspect of emotional involvement, house parties are the most intimate ones and way better than the massive gatherings such as Woodstock. On the other hand, the exclusivity of house parties is something that Boban moved away from once he started running disco clubs around Belgrade because, as he said it to me in a straightforward manner: “Disco club is the party everyone can attend”.

This fundamental need to give something to everyone, to make all the people feel good is, as I figured after this interview, a link that connects Boban’s passion for music and parties with all his money making endeavors. Would this man risk his health and life to travel thousands of miles to some wasteland in Siberia, during such a historical turmoil as the fall of Soviet Union, just to get some cheap steel, flip it, and make millions of dollars from it without having in mind some greater purpose? For all that I know, I believe that everything Boban Petrović did during his lifetime up to this very moment was partly for “the funk of it” and the adrenaline rush but, ultimately, with the vision of people coming together and enjoying themselves. All of this is supported by his previously mentioned acts of over-the-top generosities as well as by an anecdote from Pacha, Ibiza. In Pacha he went on to lift the partygoers’ spirits by buying 450 bottles of Dom Perignon so that each one out of 4500 people can drink a glass of it. (And that story is just one out of many similar worldwide stories featuring Boban Petrović in the lead role).

Now, I am well aware of the fact that all those acts can be viewed upon as conspicuous consumption or plainly boastful gestures. There is more to publicly spending a lot of money besides facilitating or enhancing the experience for a number of people. Yet, there is one, and probably the most dramatic aspect to this narrative. The one that Boban Petrović often points to lately. In his case, being rich and everything that comes with it cost him his marriage, his family and his health. After he had a fallout with his ex-wife and daughters and then underwent a few heart surgeries to fix all the heartbreaks that happened in the process, there was a new moral to his story that he holds onto dearly in the recent years. Namely, spending the money was an escape route for Boban Petrović. He simply didn’t do it fast enough to prevent the pain that hurt him and his loved ones.

During the interview, when I mentioned a rap I recorded back in 2015 on a track with Mejsi – a great MC, a friend of mine and Boban Petrović’ admirer – that translates to:
“All choices are good, all choices are bad / I get the buzz out of spending, not out of making cash”,

Boban smiled wholeheartedly and gave it a nod of approval. I didn’t tell him that the song’s title is “Marbelja žur” nor who was the inspiration for it. I also didn’t tell him that a few months prior to our interview, I was performing as an opening act for the legendary Wu-Tang Clan on Exit festival’s main stage where I rapped that rhyme right after I threw out a handful of dinar bills (y’all) to the crowd numbering tens of thousands. Keeping quiet about it had nothing to do with the fact that I was making it rain with a way lesser amount than he spent at Pacha. I mean, I still got the goosebumps from spending it that way, making some people happy while – be it even for a few seconds – feeling like I’ve never been restrained by the scarcity me and most of my peers experienced in our childhood days. Not telling Boban Petrović all of this, on the contrary, had everything to do with the fact that I didn’t have to get rid of that money in order to save my life – the life I love with everyone in it.

But maybe it was just me being way too melodramatic and not taking Boban as a rocknrolla he claims he is, or a player and hustler as I recognized him for. After all, it is us who get to choose the taste and how we feel about this as well as about any other story. Sweet, bittersweet, whatever.

In a nutshell, Slobodan “Boban” Petrović is the man who had and still has ants in his pants and likes to do things just for the funk of it. Pursuing a good business deal, seeing an attractive woman (with long legs preferably), having a blast and gettin’ down with his bad self while listening to some great live Funk jam (Kool & The Gang preferably). It’s all still there and I believe it always will be. Then again, there’s also the urge of an ultimate party-maker in him, the need to throw a party for everyone, to make the whole world feel good. A constant desire to go beyond himself, to add that “positive” to his “smoke and mirrors” if you will.

The finest balance between Boban Petrović’ greathearted party-maker-turned-philanthropist personality and his hustler one was, in my opinion, achieved on Žur. Although this album does hold some somber vibes, it’s far from Boban’s heart surgeries, divorce or loss of communication with his own children. On Žur, he is at home, in his safe place, since the parties, the music and the people are the first out of many things he had completely figured out in his life. He is at the top of his game, occasionally bothered by a casual heartbreak, but always feeling himself, coming out playful and fundamentally peaceful, satisfied and ready to transcend himself in order to put the rest of the world in the limelight. In fact, Žur isn’t about the party, music, lyrics or its, hands down, beautifully balanced sonics. It’s about Boban and the funk he lived thoroughly. The funk before, but the funk he lived after this album even more so. All the ups and downs that he faced since the moment the first needle dropped on a Žur record to this very day are on this album as the unwritten destiny of that lighthearted character he played.

Finally, one might ask what the future holds for Boban Petrović now when Žur is coming out again? Is there a way to predict the moves or even the far-future endgame of the man who’s been playing it by ear ever since? Maybe, but trying to predict this is the epitome of missing the point because for a player of the highest, Boban Petrović’ level, the game simply never ends.

Interview

Bege Fank: How would you describe yourself – as a devotee of music, parties, soccer, long legs, or Rolls Royce cars?

Boban Petrović: It’s good that you’ve mentioned legs because my passion for legs was born while playing soccer when I would, de facto, swear in mine and the legs of my co-players. And then, later, I started to look around and I saw female legs that are [beautiful] in my opinion as well as in the opinion of many… For instance, one of the most esteemed people who also appreciated them as much was Ivo Andrić who wasn’t hiding his passion for female legs because he regularly visited Kalemegdan and watched female basketball players among whom was also my mother who was famous for her great legs. And maybe that’s why my, kind of, obsession with female legs started. And they are, in a way, one of the most beautiful things in nature, aesthetics-wise. Long female legs. Short ones can be too if they are proportional. As a matter of fact, the formulation of me could be everything you mentioned. I’m, de facto, a talented seller of “smoke and mirrors”… in a positive sense. I mean, everything you hinted at – whether it’d be the Rolls Royce, soccer, music, parties, and so on – it’s all, in a way, a cloud that covers life on this planet and disappears in a moment but then again always floats above our heads. That’s how I see it. That’s why I say “positive seller of smoke and mirrors” or “seller of positive smoke and mirrors”. Nothing is forever, nothing is how it might seem at first sight, nothing is said or done forever and that’s why all of that reminds me of smoke and mirrors. And the people most self-assured about their stances and beliefs – usually the politicians – think they are right. No one’s right about anything at any time. Because as Heraclitus noticed long ago – “Pantha rei”, everything flows. You step into the same water but it’s never the same… Everything is… I mean, I don’t want to be misunderstood by those who are watching this interview and then say that I’m eccentric, talking bollocks…

Bege Fank: Nihilist?

Boban Petrović: No, I’m not a nihilist! I’m simply aware of all the things surrounding us and, in my opinion, it’s all smoke and mirrors that lift and then come back again, and so on, back and forth. And that’s why I’ve tried to formulate myself and my life this way.

Bege Fank: What you said right now reminded me of the story from Spanish TV footage recorded on your yacht and published on the CD repress of Žur [Party] in 2008. In this video, during dinner, you presented your own wine, and you said that a man is made out of many “minuses” that he tries to overcome…

Boban Petrović: Well, absolutely. To me, the funniest people are those who think they are somehow important. The ones who are so self-assured and look down on others, while at the same time are well aware of their own weaknesses and flaws. Whenever I look at such self-assured people I immediately know that it’s a mask and someone who doesn’t use their head can buy into it, but whoever knows something about life can freely go up to that politician and say “Come on now, stop…” – you cut this out later – “… stop talking shit!”

Bege Fank: Now, let’s get back from long legs to Žur LP… Long fingers. In one of your old interviews, while talking about the song “Svetski osmeh” (Worldly smile) you mentioned that those “long fingers” are the essence of the party, i.e. what one sees when people communicate at the party, their gestures. That syntagm, however, didn’t appear in the song’s lyrics. Does that mean there was an earlier version of the song or that it was in the lyrics but not recorded… or it’s just something you associated with the song?

Boban Petrović: Well, no, it’s a straightforward song about party as an institution. “Long fingers” aren’t mentioned there but, if I remember well, it’s “gentle hands”. “Gentle hands, a lot of noise and love as the open sky”. I can’t recall but I think there are no “long fingers”. But, look… You come to a party and before people start getting exalted, there is a lot of small talk in the corners, you can observe a little and, for instance, you see how someone is explaining something with their hands. And if a lady is doing it in a sophisticated way, you can see those graceful long fingers explaining something… So, I often followed those fingers and knew what they were talking about – I suppose I’ve always understood it – although I couldn’t hear them talking. Those fingers and hands can adequately express what someone is talking about. And I’m under the impression that this kind of graceful movement brings out the details… I mean, if someone would ask me now “What is a party?”… In that show of mine from 1982, which also gained some popularity in Cannes, at the MIDEM festival, and even won a prize there… Well, someone could associate a party with the song “Kupatilo je shvatilo” (The bathroom understood) and warming up female buttocks on a hot plate. This would be impossible to shoot nowadays, of course, because gender equality would probably censor it. Anyway, I am under the impression that the party is an incredibly complex institution… for me! And I knew that since I was a kid. I was throwing birthday parties where we, to the sounds of Rita Pavone or Bobby Solo’s “Una Lacrima Sul Viso” [sings it], would play this small, plastic version of a bowling game. So we used to bowl a bit, dance a bit, and we were all around 10-11 years old, and I’m like, dancing with some girl, and two other girls are competing who can knock off more pins, but they, in fact, want to catch my attention, since I was the organizer of the party as it was my birthday. This is when I started to understand that the idea of this spirit of community, friendship, laughter, and even flirting at 10 or 11 years of age, is something wonderful. And that’s how I got into the adventure called Žur (Party) At first, it was the children’s birthday parties, then those birthday parties became a bit different, then came parties without the birthday as the motive, and then it came to bathrooms and warming up on those hot plates which was, in a way, I would say, cancellation of everything I felt and dreamed of when I was throwing my first parties. Because suddenly things start to change and something else is in command… For me, however, the party was and still is, as I said in a song called “Svetski osmeh” [recites the chorus]: “A quiet nook, a feeling of intimacy and friendship / Total chaos, worldly smile, gentle hands / a lot of noise and love as the open sky”. And I’m standing firmly with the statement that good parties are definitely… Well, “definitely”, but let’s say it… they are an unsurpassed form of friendship and community. People go to Woodstock and have a similar feeling in a mass of half a million people… but that’s not it. It’s part of something massive that later got the prefix “historical”. On the other hand, at the parties happening in some Belgrade dwellings… I don’t know, I was privileged with always being able to organize my parties at the residencies of ambassadors’ sons and daughters all around Belgrade because I didn’t have my space where I could accommodate, let’s say, a hundred people. This slowly grew into the first business I started – the disco clubs. For me, the disco club was nothing but a party everyone could attend. It bothered me seeing the same people often at my parties. And then again, some people would come over and we didn’t let them in because we didn’t know them well or we didn’t know them at all. So I came to the conclusion early… And I don’t know if there were disco clubs at all when, for instance, I started something in the Sports Hall in New Belgrade… That was way before Laza Šećer. Way before, probably 2-3 years before Laza Šećer… when I managed to organize something that resembled a disco club and throw my parties in New Belgrade. Later on, I started running disco clubs. First in Pančevo – the first disco club I actually owned with a friend of mine – and then in Hotel Šumadija, up on Banovo Brdo… And from then on I was making it happen across the whole former Yugoslavia – all the way from Bečići, down South, to Rovinj where I had that disco club…

Bege Fank: Škaraba?

Boban Petrović: Yes, Škaraba.

Bege Fank: There is an interesting song I discovered 5-6-7 years ago, made by Zoran Simjanović and you for the TV show “Gledajući televiziju” (“Watching TV”), a song that was unavailable for a long time. Its title is “Volela se dva šarafa” (“Two bolts made love”), from 1977, where you and Zoran Simjanović – both institutions in their own right – sing “male-female, male-male, female-female / no one is alone anymore, no one”.

Boban Petrović: Yes [smiles and recites the lyrics]… bolt and nut [finger gesture of a bolt going into a nut].

Bege Fank: However, it’s interesting that it was on air on RTB (Radio-Television Belgrade) in 1977, and today it would probably be seen as inappropriate.

Boban Petrović: You mentioned a few minutes ago that the situation is more conservative today than it was during those times. On the other hand, I would say that the control is tougher or even that there is censorship to protect gender equality, etc. I believe that… usually in conflict situations where people talk about gender equality, the female gender is endangered in a certain way, but I can bet that the female gender will soon get bored with this kind of “protection” that “normal” women never even asked for. (…) I don’t want to philosophize, I have my own opinions, but those were innocent times in a way – ladies could be surrounded by a lot of things and never feel threatened. Right now it feels like it’s something fashionable. I expect ladies will snap out of it soon and let men approach them on the street without calling the police. (…) For instance, there’s my song on Žur, called “Prepad”, the one opening the album conceptually, starting from the moment when I ambush a girl – I mean, “ambush” – as the moment I invite her to a party and then it continues with everything that happens til the end of the party… That “ambush” or sudden approach to a girl on the street… You talk to that lady and if in those 5-6 words you feel a vibe, you ask her for her phone number, etc. I believe that no one was seriously harmed by it and I even think that ladies were, in a way, honored when someone approached them on the street and said “Wow, you look so good!”. Nowadays you say that and she’s looking around for municipal police, and pointing her finger… I mean, things went to hell in a way, but I believe it’s on the female gender to make it right.

Bege Fank: It’s great that we’ve mentioned the structure of the album itself because I wrote in my review of CD repress of Žur from 2008 that it is, in fact, an album about getting ready for the party and the actual party experience of a non-ordinary Belgrade disco king…

Boban Petrović: Yes…

Bege Fank: … which is you.

Boban Petrović: Well, am I a disco king? I say “Yes”, you say “disco king” and I jump in offbeat with my “yes” [smiles]. No, I was saying “yes” to the comment that this album is a contribution to the musical expression of my idea of the party and the importance of the party.

Bege Fank: Late Nenad Stefanović Japanac was a friend of mine…

Boban Petrović: He played bass on some of my tracks.

Bege Fank: Yes, and he told me an interesting anecdote that once during the time when you were recording your songs at the end of the ’70s and the start of the ’80s – you two entered Politika’s building together and went up by the elevator from the ground floor. You met some girl in the elevator and, as he said, just by using your gift of gab you managed to get her to be “down for whatever” – whatever you consensualized with her – even before the elevator reached the top floor… It was interesting for him to witness that kind of power of communication or “prepad”…

Boban Petrović: Yes, understood. Well, for me it was… beautiful when someone goes by… What’s the name of that guy, Blunt? I don’t know his name but he sang “You’re beautiful” [sings]…

Bege Fank: James Blunt?

Boban Petrović: … and then he wonders if he’ll ever see her again because he, like, bumped into her. Well, that never happened to me! When I would bump into someone beautiful I never missed the chance and was never thinking, like, a year after “What would’ve happened if I approached her?” I was doing it immediately! Even today I can approach… Ok, I’m disclosing some secrets now [smiles and points to his wife].

Bege Fank: You had a “go-getter” approach?

Boban Petrović: Well, you know, if you are attracted to someone… You see, I wasn’t motivated from the get-go to get her to become my girlfriend or to have sex. No, but simply you’d like to stay in touch with someone who you were attracted to. Any kind of contact! (…) And no one knows what kind because it’s hard for the drives and urges and what not to appear immediately. In that context, I perceived that as a certain type of… well, it sounds a bit dull, but… a certain type of sport. Because, believe it or not, it would happen to me 7-8 times a day sometimes. If 7 or 8 “hotties” happened to pass by, what was I to do? I had to try. And a man masters the skill. There are no lies. You know, people usually go “Hey, I’m a photographer, would you like to…” No, I did it straightforwardly, and every time I approached a girl I didn’t come from behind. This is now advice to the youngsters if they don’t want to risk prison time because it’s forbidden to approach unknown ladies on the street, I guess. So, I used to run 20 meters in front of a girl, and then turn to meet her head-on, because when you tap someone on the shoulder from behind it’s over, you are creating a situation… I’m already smiling from a 10-meter distance, grinning from ear to ear because I’m pleased to see someone who looks like that. And then that smile of mine mesmerizes the lady who then forgets that she has a boyfriend or that she’s holding on to some views that are, I don’t know, patriarchal or whatever. She is coming to me and I already melted her down so I openly say to her that she is beautiful, that I like her, and that I would like her contact, to meet up or invite her to a party, and whatnot. And that’s the reason why there were so many beautiful ladies at those parties of mine. Whether they were beautiful by their physical appearance or charming and likable, and so on. In that context, that’s the reason why there was a rush for the imaginary tickets for my parties.

Bege Fank: In one of your old interviews you mentioned that you can recognize the energy of a Black man in yourself and that if you’d danced in the same room with some Black men, they wouldn’t believe that you are White. How do you feel that Black man’s spirit or energy?

Boban Petrović: I have a feeling I always think about it, but I can’t find any tangible proof for it. It came across my mind many times that I have some exotic blood in my veins. Romani perhaps?! But there was no one of Romani descent anywhere close. By the way, I completely love and appreciate Romani people.

Bege Fank: Jatagan mala?

Boban Petrović: And I did live in Jatagan mala with Romani people. This was the first 6 or 7 years of my life. So, from early in the morning till late in the night it was… chaotic. I mean… even today my scars are visible. If the camera can catch it [pulls up his sleeves]. Knife scars… right here [showing his right hand]. This one here is from bypass heart surgery [showing his left hand], and that one was made with knives. Then scars on my head. That’s why I’m wearing a hat… I’m kidding. Well… Fights happened, but just for recreational reasons. There was no hatred. And, well, there was a lot of music because those little… No one will be offended – those little Gypsies, my friends, were always, sort of, banging on something… It could be a shoe box or… They always loved to… And their fathers were usually, though collaterally… One of them was, for example, carrying corpses in a hospital near us, right there where I lived in Jatagan mala… But [they] also played the violin a bit, and my grandfather played the violin a bit too. So, there was a lot of music there. Even as a kid, I felt that those little Gypsies and I had the same sense of rhythm. It’s that… You’ll allow me now to… So, it’s not… [playing “flat” rhythm on the table in front of him with his hands], but it’s… [playing Oriental rhythm with differently accentuated beats] with a slight latency. And that’s what I discovered as a kid. Perhaps that’s the reason why those little Gypsies adored me, and we were like brothers. A guy called Redža and then a guy, I don’t know… called Imlija, and so on… Good names! So, all in all, that’s where I felt it… that pulse which isn’t an everyday thing. And it reappeared later on because I think that not many… Well, “A Gypsy praises his own horse” [idiom suggesting humbleness for boasting about something of yours], but I believe there were not many people in this country that made our authentic Funk. There were a lot of attempts – for instance, Silja, whom you [know]… Simjanović [Zoran], whom I adored, may he rest in peace. A great guy, we worked together, etc. Well, he played this Black music with Elipse. They had that guy Edi Dekeng, or what was the name of that singer, and they were, like, leaning toward that style a bit… However, whenever we discussed Elipse decades later, I always remarked it was too flat. That it was… They did play all of that – each riff they copied was perfect. But there is something in Funk that… if you don’t feel like you are dying, dying, and you hit that note just before you are about to die. Not [long] before you are about to pass away, because it’s this [flat] “Tap!” And this is [pause] “… tap!”

Bege Fank: Yes, that swing…

Boban Petrović: Well, that’s a huge difference, and it’s the reason why there are not many White funksters. And that’s why I respect and love myself because I know I did that. Well, others did too perhaps, because the others also liked it. I can be falsely humble now and say I didn’t believe in my crazy gut feeling. Because… I know exactly how to feel that. And this… the remark you made about how wherever I went in, whichever disco club, where Black men were undisputed on the dancefloor… Be it New York, London, or wherever it happened across the globe… At first, I felt the hard, judging eyes on my back – not to mention when it was head-on. Then I felt how the Black dancers’ enthusiasm gradually lowered. And then, as it happened many times, they just left while I stayed with the prettiest Black girl, and we were killing it. For instance, LaVallbone disco club in London… I wrote about that somewhere – was it the first or the second part…? The first part, I think… or the second? No, I don’t know. In the first part… of Rokanje. Well, that helped me immensely in finding the right course when I was creating music. And even those ballads of mine always had slightly… more of a feeling than some other ballads at that time…

Bege Fank: They had more Soul to it?

Boban Petrović: Well, they had, they had this thread…

Bege Fank: As Gypsies would say – they were “duševne” [soulful].

Boban Petrović: Duševne, yes! [laughs] Well, yes, there was something there… And that’s why I was always suspicious about my origin – where did I get that from?

Bege Fank: I’m interested in a story, and I don’t know if you had the opportunity… You were born in 1951, right?

Boban Petrović: Yes.

Bege Fank: So, it was, like… you were 16-17 years old when Elipse started playing that early Soul and the crossover to Mersey beat, The Beatles, where each beat is accentuated in the same way, so it’s flat…

Boban Petrović: Yes, yes.

Bege Fank: They used to play in Lazarac, near today’s Tuckwood Cineplex…

Boban Petrović: Yes, yes…

Bege Fank: … on Lazarevićeva Street. So, Zoran Simjanović wrote in his book and also told me in an interview that, since they started playing there, more and more Gypsies were attending those parties. And at one moment there were just Gypsies there and they were dancing, he said, like they were in Harlem, although they never had a chance to see, I don’t know, James Brown or…

Boban Petrović: Yes.

Bege Fank: … so, it’s somewhat a connection as well.

Boban Petrović: I watched Elipse for the first time at Tašmajdan, perhaps at their beginnings. I remember they performed the song “Hold on, I’m coming”. “Hold on, I’m coming…” [sings] Sam & Dave, right?

Bege Fank: Yes, it was the standard in their repertoire.

Boban Petrović: Yes, and… Well, it was all nice, but I listened to Sam & Dave before. So, they played it incredibly precise. They were all good musicians – Furda [drummer], Bojan, the bass player…

Bege Fank: Hreljac, yes.

Boban Petrović: … but it was, well, flat. And those Romani kids who went to their gigs would probably recognize the composition of the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic elements, and so on, but I doubt that they were ecstatic the way they would have been if they had listened to Sam & Dave. Exactly because of these little details I was talking about.

Bege Fank: Because you need to “tighten it up”…

Boban Petrović: Yes… You mentioned Neša Japanac. He had it. He had it, and there was another amazing bass player, a good friend of mine, who also played on some of my tracks… Lola, the famous bass player. Well, they both had it… to some extent. Neša was, here and there… Since he had a good technique, he used to play a bit in front of the beat and was “filling” it more than one should. Lola was, on the other hand… less is more. He wasn’t pushing… and he felt it. And, in a way, I “clicked” with both of them, when we talked about collaboration to make Funky music here. And, among the drummers, of course, my late friend and someone who I love… a lot, and who I loved. Raša Đelmaš of YU Grupa for whom no one knows he was Black… He was dark-tanned, he also might’ve been of Romani descent! But he is the only drummer I’d mention who had it… ever, and I met them all and played with many of them. Well, the one who had that swing, and that stroke from here [elbow] when he hit the drum. So, he felt all of that… like he was a Black man.

Bege Fank: There is footage published on the CD repress of Žur [Mascom, 2008] from your club Long Legs [in Marbella] when you brought over Kool & The Gang…

Boban Petrović: Yes…

XYZ magazine | Private collection of Petar Lukovic

Bege Fank: … and you were on the stage, playing with them, right?

Boban Petrović: Yes. I played with them. Not once, but a few times. Well, there was even an idea that we organize a concert for the anniversary of my album where they would play as backup band for me and [play] my songs, and in the second part of the concert, they would play their songs, of course. I’m not giving up on that idea, although they are slowly getting shattered so now, out of many original members, there are just a few of them alive. Kool, the band’s founder and a very good friend of mine is, fortunately, still alive. And in a way, I’m not giving up on it, and if, at some moment, it pops into my mind that Belgrade needs a good party again, I will bring them over, and we’ll throw down some funk. [smiles]

Bege Fank: In 2010 it happened in Belgrade Arena… [it was] them and David Morales, right?

Boban Petrović: Yes.

Bege Fank: It was a party thrown in the honor of your late parents’ life…

Boban Petrović: Yes…

Bege Fank: … that was the concept?

Boban Petrović: That was, kind of, a bit extravagant, ’cause it was, like, my parents passed away… They were also talented in music, although only as amateurs… And they fell in love with Kool & The Gang because of me, because it was blasting in our house… And then an idea came to my mind that, perhaps, when I’m officially saying farewell to them, we put up their photos on two big screens… and then Kool was tearin’ it up for them. He knew them, Kool knew them. Down in Marbella, Kool & The Gang were, like a resident band in my house as well as in that club with an accompanying recording studio. I think they played in Marbella for at least… 20 years, 50 times at least. They used to come for a day, for instance, and they’d have a concert schedule… And, since the vibe was so good, I had them around for 7 days. I paid for all other bookings, and cancellation penalties, and they stayed. That was while I had money. Eventually, I started asking myself if I was supposed to spend it like that…

Bege Fank: My generation, including myself – I was born in 1978 – we heard about you for the first time in the context of Marbella and football in the mid-’90s… ’93, ’94, ’95, when it was happening… And I remember that the first time I heard your name was when you gave that Lamborghini to Vladan Lukić after he scored two goals against which team, Real [Madrid]?

Boban Petrović: He scored two goals against Real.

Bege Fank: Yes, yes…

Boban Petrović: And then in the Cup…

Bege Fank: … and then a truck with a tank of free beer for the fans?

Boban Petrović: Oh, no – there were three tanks, and the whole stadium was on fire. So, he scored those two goals, and I came for the first time [in Lamborghini]… I’ve been waiting [for] for 3-4 months… Well, Sean Connery, my good friend and neighbor, we were friends for years. He fell in love with Serbia, hung out with me, and became the greatest ambassador of… Serbian interests, in my opinion, because he knew the situation inside out. Just as I arrived at Marbella he introduced me to Tony Dali, the famous Italian singer, who was, coincidentally, a very good friend of the CEO of Lamborghini. By the way, Tony Dali was singing in Las Vegas for years and then came down there [to Marbella] and opened a restaurant where he was singing… At the time it was one of the most elite restaurants in the world. So, the three of us were hanging out there on my yacht, and he said that Countach [limited edition Lamborghini] is coming out for its 25th anniversary, and there will be only 25 of them. I said I wanted one. He said that it was impossible because Arabs bought all of them already. I said, “You have to find me one”. [smiles] I said: “Go on and sing to your pal down there [in Italy]”. So, blah blah blah, it was going back and forth for two months, and they managed to get me this… with a golden plate… made out of solid gold, literally. “25 years of Lamborghini”. And so, I got that one or two days before my team was playing that game. So, I sat in the Lamborghini, full of myself, and went there… parking area, lodge, the whole shebang. My team was playing well against Real… This one [Lukić] scored two goals, and I went down there [to the locker rooms] during halftime and [gave him] the keys to the car which I drove [only once] a minute ago. Bam! It cost me 450.000 US dollars because it was a collector’s item. So he couldn’t believe it, and the other players couldn’t believe it… I said, “Here, take the car.”. He asked, “What car?” He didn’t even see the car! “Well, the Lamborghini up there in the parking lot. Drive it.”, I said. “What do you mean by “Drive it.”?” “It’s yours”, I said. He couldn’t play in the 2nd half after that. [smiles] Anyway, the game finished, and I didn’t even go there. I didn’t want (…) to watch the farewell scene with the car I wanted so much, but this guy delighted me so much that I just crumbled. So, he came over that evening and said, “This…, you gave me your car… I couldn’t even dream about it, but now I must ask you something.” He called me “the President”. “I have to drive it to Belgrade.”, he said. I mean, to Sopot, where he’s from. I said, “How now when we are in the middle of the championship?” He was our scorer! He said, “But I ought to. I can’t fight it.”. As I found out later, he wanted to drive it to the clay of Red Star’s [football club in Belgrade] football field to show everyone what he had achieved after everyone wrote him off when he broke his leg. He had a bad injury while he had the best prospects out of all the players back then. He was playing for the national team. So, I figured he wanted to show that he was back and had already been rewarded with something they could only dream of. So, in that context, this story about Lamborghini had a weird twist later on… because all the newspapers reported that. Not only in Spain but in the whole of Europe. Something like, “Crazy president…” – owner of the club – “… not just giving away his Lamborghini but letting the main scorer leave for 10 days in the middle of the championship”. It never happened before. To no one, nowhere!

Bege Fank: I’m interested in this story – which I was a part of, in a sense – when we were throwing the Belgrade Funk Congress in the former building of the Central Committee, and we made that mash-up of “Djuskaj” and “Uptown Funk”… If you can tell us about it… How did you actually get this perception that it was, perhaps, an inspiration for “Uptown Funk”?

Boban Petrović: Well, not “perhaps”, ’cause I’m sure about it, from this perspective… Well, in general… The year was 2000, and my daughter was in music. Unbelievably talented composer, pianist, and, like, Black music totally. One time she was in New York City, negotiating a publishing contract with Sony… Richard Rowe was the name of the son… of the President of Sony Music Publishing. The son of that famous Rowe who turned down The Beatles when they brought him their demos. Nevertheless, here is what happened… Žur… Žur? Well, party in West Village, a five-story house. A bit narrow, but still a big house. Black house. Inside – everything [was] black. Black chains, when we entered… Whose party did we come to? I was brought there by a friend of mine and Kool’s, a guy called Bilal. Because he took an Islamic name, a Muslim name… So, this Bilal brought my daughter and me to this party, happening on all the five floors. Downstairs was a bar, upstairs one DJ, on the third floor another… Wesley Snipes’ house. He introduced us to Wesley Snipes, Robert De Niro, Tarantino… That girl Juliette Lewis, the actress… Later on, comes Di Caprio… A company like that exactly – crazy stuff! So, the music is blasting, everybody’s dancing, and so on, and so on. So Bilal, who was often my guest down in Marbella… because he was working with my daughter, brought over this guy who later became popular… Robin Thicke. You might know who he is. What’s the name of [the song]… “Blurred”?

Bege Fank: “Blurred Lines”…

Boban Petrović: Blurred Lines!

Bege Fank: … [stolen] from Marvin Gaye.

Boban Petrović: Yes. He brought him over a few times, as he was working on something in my studio there with my daughter. In fact, twice, and for six months both times… And these kids, his friends from New Kids On The Block were coming over… This guy Jordan Knight, and then… many of them. Puff Daddy’s wife… who later didn’t want to leave Marbella, etc. And later Prince, etc. Anyway, let me get back to this… This guy Bilal, since he always carried my CD around and was telling everyone, like, “There is this crazy guy from Marbella who makes Black music with good beats, killer tunes.”… He went over to the DJ, gave it to him, and he played it once – these guys are asking for more. He played it a second time… He played it 7-8 times during those 3-4 hours we were there… Meanwhile, Tarantino is on his knees in front of my daughter, asking her to marry him – he was drugged out heavily… De Niro [talked] to her for an hour. She was beautiful… I presume she still is. Well… an incredibly talented, accomplished pianist, singer… everything. But she was also into some other things. She graduated and then got her PhD at 22 or 23. She achieved all of it so young, and then she didn’t know what to do next… She got a bit bored by the music… This is a slight digression about her… Anyway, the song became the hit of the evening. “Djuskaj”. And it really does have that killer beat… And, on top of that, “djuskaj, djuskaj” like “juice of sky”, you know… That word, kind of, appealed to them. So, the party is coming to an end, and where should we go? We are going to the disco club called Black Fat Pussycat. It’s, like, on the first street downhill from there. So, we entered the disco club, and the first thing Wesley Snipes did was… As per usual, I ordered champagne and wouldn’t let anyone reach into their pockets, like the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, who draws it first. No one was faster than me. I tried as hard as I could to spend everything I made. So, he [Snipes] gave [CD] to this DJ and demanded from him, like, we are ordering champagne so play… Play our music, what we want to hear! He started playing, and it was the same song. Once… for the third… fifth… seventh time… during that hour and a half or two hours. They danced their brains out! But, for real, this “Djuskaj” track is catchy. A man who loves to dance can’t resist it. You can’t stand still! That’s my “Gypsy gene” right there… the roots of which I still haven’t discovered. But who knows… So the night is coming to an end, and this kid DJ and I greet each other. He was the “hot DJ in the States” at the time. And those two best disco clubs at that moment, with the reputation of being crazy fresh – Black Fat Pussycat in Miami and in New York – he is, like, commuting between them… I didn’t know who the kid was! We greeted each other, and I left.

Bege Fank: That was at the start of the 2000s?

Boban Petrović: It was the year 2000. So… after all of that, in 2015, “Uptown Funk” was on a roll. The first thing I noticed was my brass line. [interpretes brass] I listened to the bass a bit and saw that the constellation of melodic lines and harmonies [is similar]… That’s how you were able to mix them, that time [at Belgrade Funk Congress]! So, I’m wondering what that’s all about, thinking, is it possible that artists from different parts of the world think and feel the same, and make similar songs? However, the more I listened to it, it was becoming less… So, I called Bilal in New York City and said, “Listen, if you still have that CD of mine, take a listen to ‘Djuskaj’ and then to ‘Uptown Funk'”. He called me back and said: “Damn… it’s crazy! People won trials for even lesser thefts”. So I said: “What do you think, could someone have bitten this?” And in the middle of the conversation… He said, “Do you know who the producer is?” I said, “I don’t know”. “Mark Ronson”. “Well”, I said, “Why is that important?” And he said, “Do you know that Mark Ronson was the DJ that night when we were at the Black Fat Pussycat?”

Bege Fank: I find these anecdotes about you very interesting because I can really see that when you recognize something is to your liking, or perfect to you, you are ready to give away the whole world…

Boban Petrović: Let’s go! Let’s go, that’s it!

Bege Fank: … and this generosity for me is… Since I’m a songwriter as well, I have a rhyme that goes “All choices are good, all choices are bad / I get the buzz out of spending, not out of making cash”.

Boban Petrović: Well, that’s it, that’s it! Damn right! And apropos that cash and everything… Now, after all, I have a philosophical motto which, in my opinion, is not at all naive and, I think, is bound to become popular. That old Jewish saying “May you have and then have not” – I flipped it, so my motto, which many ought to give thought to, goes “May you have not and then have.”. It’s because, at one time, neither I, nor my family had anything… Eight or nine of us living in two rooms… Grandma, grandpa, uncle, wife… And Jatagan mala, these scars, and so on… So, after everything that happened actually happened, when I bought everything that can be bought for money on this planet because I never expected [to have] even a small part of that money, I had an impression that I was instinctively heading in the direction of spending it all but didn’t make it on time. So, in the meantime, my family fell apart, many of my relatives renounced [me], I lost friends… Because, well, I hadn’t been changing, and everyone around me had. Unbelievable! You know, people usually think that when you make some money you become stuck up… No! Suddenly it was, like, I know I stayed the same… completely! Nothing, no change in my behavior, but those around me… they all went away. So, about this, when something is to my liking… It happened a bunch of times, all around the world… But it’s the same when something is not to my liking! I have to lift them up! So, for instance, I get into Pacha in Ibiza, and there are, like, four or five thousand people there. Everything’s bad – the music, the vibe… like you killed their whole families! Exactly as if you walked into a concentration camp! So, blah, blah blah, I said… I called the manager and asked, “How many people are here?”. He said, “There are, like, 4500 of them”. “How many champagne bottles do I have to order so that each person gets a glass of it? Dom Perignon!“ “Well,“ he said… He calculates… “There are ten glasses per bottle…” “Well,” he said, “we’ll need 400-450 bottles“. “Let’s go!“ He comes back after five minutes and says, “But we only have 100”. “Well,” I said, “I’m not interested in buying 100. I’m interested in getting a glass of champagne for each person in here, so go and look for it.”. A rush started, it was on! They were running around Ibiza for two and a half hours till they joined four tables together and arranged all the bottles on them. And this one guy, my adjutant… I say “adjutant” but, in fact, it’s a guy I was very fond of… From Sarajevo… God Bless his soul… We called him Walter… So, he counts those bottles and miscounts them a few times, and again, and again… and finally says, “450!” Bam! They started popping those bottles, and everyone got so cheerful, everything livened up, the DJ also… So that was one of the biggest expenses in my lifetime, and it’s not just that I don’t feel bad about it, but I left the club delighted! And that Lamborghini still cost me more than the champagne. There I pleased one, and here 4500 of them.

Bege Fank: “Djuskaj” is the tipping point of the whole album, at least from my point of view… I got into music through Hip-Hop, and then Funk, Soul, and Disco… At a certain point, you say “Musicians, go on and recite”. Was it an evocation to rapping, did you know about rapping at the time?

Boban Petrović: I came out with rapping, believe it or not, in the 1970s… before “Meteorology”. Before my first hit song…

Bege Fank: Yes, yes…

Boban Petrović: … I made the track called “Rezultati, rezultati, pa tek onda ponovni mandati” [Results, results, then new mandates].

Bege Fank: “Kandidati mandati“, yes.

Boban Petrović: Yes. So, everyone was asking me about it then because no one was doing it. What is that? I called it pričalica [talker, chatterbox]. I really didn’t know. So, a lot later, Sugar Hill Gang came out and whatnot… A lot later! Anyway, I felt the need to tell something backed by music and good rhythm, but not to… that was my idea of it… not to “dilute” the lyrics with melody. I mean, I loved good melodies, good ballads, and so on, and that’s that. But when you want to declare something… In fact, I think this was in the essence of Rap. To avoid these… You take the shortcut and say what you want to say, because melody dilutes it, and people gravitate towards the melody, harmony, and whatnot… But here the rhythm is banging, and you say what you want to say. So, it worked in America because they started saying those revolutionary lyrics. It was, in my opinion, very political in the beginning. But I did it here before [them]! Believe me. I did it before. People can cross-check the dates, etc., and see when this [track] of mine was [made]…

Bege Fank: Interestingly, this song lives on, as Jelena Mihailović quoted it in a session of the National Assembly. It’s an interesting anecdote also…

Boban Petrović: Yes, yes. My young wife Jela Cello [nickname of Jelena Mihailović] – how the British would say – or Jela Čelo, came out and rapped that as a member of the National Assembly, in her first speech, or perhaps even in the first session, and caused a wreck because it’s not very pleasant when you warn politicians that they must show some results to be re-elected. Everything is backward here, unfortunately. So, she noticed that well when she heard the song a long time ago – I mean, since we were together – and she liked it a lot, the whole message, so she used it… And I never could’ve guessed it, of course. It goes, “The birth rates decline, like, the short maternity leave is the reason for it, hilarious / In fact, unemployed young people without a roof over their heads / guessing they would feed their children with grass”. So, it was in 1975. I don’t see that much has changed nowadays.

Bege Fank: Yes, 40 years later, same lyrics in the National Assembly…

Boban Petrović: The same lyrics work, the same topics, everything is the same! So, it actually doesn’t hurt to push this song to remind these [politicians]…

Bege Fank: Well then, in “Djuskaj” when you say: “Musicians, go on and recite…”, it was, defacto, an evocation to…

Boban Petrović: An evocation to [rapping] on one hand, and on the other hand, well… At that time, many songs on our scene emphasized the lyrics. So, you see, there is a contradiction. Here I’m inviting people to rap – which I did way before – and there I’m complaining, (…) because the vast number of songs were… For instance, all praise to [Branimir Johnny] Štulić or, I don’t know… there are people. Not to mention [Đorđe] Balašević and so on… Many of them started selling a kind of “Rock philosophy” at the time, i.e., playing smart-asses and suggesting to the young what they should do… or how. Whether to rebel against or to side with the system. And in that context… There was “Računajte na nas“ [Count on us], you know, (…) and Štulić was saying something like, destroy everything, just go for it. So, in general, music was put on the back burner, and that’s what also got me started a bit… And, considering Rap… Let me get back to that… It became a subculture which, taking everything into account, including Elvis Presley, Glenn Miller, and, I don’t know, even before that, Richard Rogers, or Gershwin or, if you prefer, these Blues guys, B. B. King and this one, and that one… Overall, it became way more popular than all of them together, which was also evident later in the financial aspect. Because no one ever came even close to the money made by Russell Simmons – who later founded Def Jam – or the previously mentioned Sugar Hill Gang, which included the Robinsons – a husband and wife – and, can you imagine, the third most important person there was, by coincidence, our man, Milton Malden. Yes… Mladenović. By the way, uncle of a good friend of mine. Anyway, what was happening? Rap keeps staying alive to this day, as we can see – and it will always stay alive – it wasn’t a fad. As I understand it, it’s rather something like “let’s dance, and along with dancing” – or along with being “stoned” and down on the floor – “let’s listen to something that can affect our lives”. And I justify it, although I was, in a way, against it at first.

Bege Fank: “Here, take this rhythm and dance – 1, 2, 6…“ [“Djuskaj” rhymes]

Boban Petrović: 1, 2, yes, yes! Take it… let’s go!

Bege Fank: … let’s get back to the music.

Boban Petrović: Yes. Don’t recite no more, let’s go…

Bege Fank: There was that “musical poster” or “video LP” format at the end of the ’70s and the start of the ’80s. You did it with Žur. In fact, you made the whole video album accompanying [it]… Stories were told about the organization of the whole thing, from pillar to post…

Boban Petrović: Huh, yes…

Bege Fank: … it’s interesting since at the same or similar time Oliver Mandić’ came out, whose first gig you organized and promoted at Hotel Šumadija…

Boban Petrović: Yes, Hotel Šumadija…

Bege Fank: … so, Oliver and “Beograd noću” [Belgrade at night], [Stanko] Crnobrnja, [Kosta] Bunuševac. How is it that during a period of a year or two, two such [great] video albums surfaced and that yours, as well as Oliver’s, got screened and won prizes abroad? What was happening here, among our authors, and you as a producer, I presume…?

Boban Petrović: We were thinking similarly. The basic story of Stanko’s and Oliver’s “Beograd noću” was also the party and Belgrade nightlife, in a slightly more distant association, while in my case it was straightforward. This is the party. So, we organized it at Jelena Genčić’ – the first coach who trained Novak Đoković – in her house in Dedinje, and at my friend Zoran Radović’, a bit downhill, near the Museum 25th of May. He also had a huge house with tennis courts, a swimming pool, etc. So, half of the city showed up. We had police officers as security because people wanted to forcibly enter houses no larger than 300 or 400 square meters. I mean, we had four or five thousand people outside, and it was November, [it was] so cold. I remember it because when Duška Ševerdija, a beautiful model, and I were shooting the bathroom scene for “Kupatilo je shvatilo”, this guy forgot to turn on the water heater, so then we showered ourselves with cold water in November… [laughs] But, because of that, we were later warming up the buttocks of an Army general’s daughter on a stove, and we convinced her that it should be done like that because it’s cold. Then, a third one was naked, and anyone who wanted would paint on her body, like, art or something, blah blah blah… (…) We made this much before it premiered. Miša Vukobratović was an excellent director, although all of us were involved in directing and writing the screenplay… So, this show won the MIDEM festival at Cannes, really won, and scooped up the prize… I think that to this day, no other program by Radio Television of Serbia has sold in more countries, and now [the recording] is missing from the archive of RTS, of course. I couldn’t find it. We were looking for it, but… nothing. So, we made it a long time before the album, but I waited for the album to come out, to put it out at the same time as Žur LP. In the meantime, between our shooting of the video album and Žur LP release, Stanko and Oliver made their, so that was phenomenal. Two completely different programs, in a way… There, Kosta Bunuševac, nutty and talented as hell, Stanko, an awesome director; Oliver and his great music, of course… and he was nutty as well! So, there was gossip, like, “Did this one bite the other one or is it the other way around?”, but no one bit anyone because the shows were made in totally [different]… Let’s say, neither Stanko knew that we had made this one, nor have we seen theirs while making ours. So, it happened spontaneously, this Belgrade thing, because it was probably in the air, and we just captured it. This Žur created a few problems for me, in a way, because it was received with various condemnations. For instance, the general mentioned before gave an answer in Politika [daily newspaper] editorial to his brothers-in-arms, who demanded that my passport be revoked so I couldn’t travel anymore because I was a bad example for youth. They didn’t understand the irony present in the undertones, because the party meant a totally different thing to me.

Bege Fank: When did you make the first songs for the album, and how long did it take to create the whole album?

Boban Petrović: [In] 1978 or 1979, and it took, let’s say, two and a half years. I had made many of those songs, but I wasn’t pleased with them, in a way, with this libretto that I wanted to accompany the music on the album. So, an excellent song perhaps didn’t even make it to the album… I was working on some of those songs much later, 20 or 30 years after all of that, in my studio in Marbella, for my daughter. So I followed this thread in my mind, this libretto, the events, and each song had to reflect that adequately. (…) For instance, in “Daj mi šansu” [Give me a chance], where I’m begging my girlfriend who arrived at the party and caught me with this one [another girl] that I ambushed on the street – that song is spot on at that moment when I’m begging her [for forgivness]. “Pogrešio sam” [I made a mistake] also, with the “love triangle“… This one is young, that one with “wrinkles on her face soaking up the darkness… whatever… courage or cowardice… I’m staying with her“ – with this one having wrinkles, and the other one is suffering… The one whom I ambushed… I mean, some madness of mine! But everything is happening at that party, and it actually did in my case! It was happening in my real life. I didn’t just sit down and make up a scenario or libretto. I just reflected on what was actually happening to me and what was remarkable, in my opinion.

Bege Fank: So, these reactions, this critique which you turned your attention to in “Djuskaj” in a certain way, I presume… I read some of them in Džuboks [Serbian music magazine] or something like that… In general, all those Yugoslav music critics distanced themselves from Disco music…

Boban Petrović: Yes…

Bege Fank: …it all sounded cheap to them, it wasn’t the poetics they were interested in. How come you were so confident to do it, despite it all, to travel to Switzerland or wherever to complete the album that – as you were probably aware – would provoke heavy attacks from the critics? What helped you to keep at it?

Boban Petrović: Well, you see, Goran Bregović talked me into starting my music career. Whenever he would come to Belgrade… his first visit to Belgrade was, I think, with the band Jutro… They had the song “Bijelo dugme” which later became the name of the band… So, it was completely natural for a cool guy from Sarajevo to hook up with Belgrade madness, and so, in his mind, I became this guru of Belgrade parties. So, we would wander around, and when we’d get a bit tired… He had a flight to Ljubljana at 7:30 A.M., for example, and between 4 and 6:30 A.M. when he had to leave for the airport, we would go up to my place, and my mum would fix us some sandwiches. I lived in Košutnjak at the time… And so, while mum was making the sandwiches and he was catching some rest, napping lightly, I just started hitting the keys on my sister’s piano, playing my stuff… “Meteorology”. So, he said, “What’s that man?!”. “Some music I made,” I said. I started making music when I stopped playing football. I couldn’t play anymore since both of my knees were injured. And then I had those ants in my pants forcing me to release some energy, so the music became the way. And he said, “You must publish it!” I said, “Huh? Publish what?! I’m just an amateur, a naive artist…” “No, man, this is smashin’!”, he said. So, we recorded it a month later and took Bijelo Dugme off the top of all music charts in Yugoslavia, including Sarajevo! He just called me and said, “Man, that wasn’t a part of the deal”. [laughs] “I didn’t even want it, you made me [do it]! I’m a naive artist, man!” Nevertheless, this friendship of ours resulted in him calling me to perform that first single… At the time, I was in a relationship with a wonderful singer Slađana Milošević, and I pulled her out of Saša Subota’s group of backing vocalists. Blah, blah, blah… We managed to turn her into a superstar in three months. Then Goran said, “Come on, tour now!” so the first concert was at Hajdučka česma, then all the stadiums afterward. So we really showed up there, and when we started going crazy with our Funk, suddenly you see a mass of those young girls… And we were already promoting the single for about a month on all the TV shows – “Od glave do pete” [From head to toe], “Beogradska hronika” [Belgrade chronicle], whatnot… “Nedeljno popodne” [Sunday afternoon]! So, [we were on] the most popular shows, and everyone liked it. There were many of us on stage, and we were looking good, [had] good rhythm, and so on… but these kids started pushing around, so the Army stopped the concert for the first time and took them all out. Then the second time… When it happened for the third time, the commander came to us and said, “We are now going to cancel the concert”. Goran said, “Boban, go away, man! You fucked up the whole concert!”. We are running off the stage, etc. Regardless, I will always remember that time of concerts and madness across Yugoslavia, and naturally, we have experienced some unprecedented things.

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