Friday, June 1, 2007

Play that funky chalga, ladyboy! Play that funky chalga right!

Just when I thought I'd heard and seen everything, there's Azis. The bearded crossdresser is the major star of the Bulgarian pop music form chalga, a mix of Balkan folk music, Turkish arabesque, bad western dance pop and, now, rap.

These videos must be seen to be believed:

Tochno sega, in which Azis teams up with apparently bi rapper Ustata... and his cheetah.


Kak boli, in which our hero has a bad shiner and whose ex seems to like to remove her skirt for no apparent reason.

And the indescribable Kazvash che me obichash, in wh
ich Azis teams up with an improbably-proportioned singer named Desislava, injection narcotics, French maids and topless slave boys.

I can only assume Bulgaria has no Tipper Gore.


You have to love the lyrics too:

Durt Kozel Mlada Lyushteshe
(‘An old Billy Goat was scratching a young willow hard’)
Ruslan Muinov (2002)

The best whistle is made out of young willow.
Bulgarian folk proverb.

Come to the glade,
Just like this, only the two of us.
Come on, take off your clothes,
Let’s wade into the river.
You feel ashamed of people,
But that’s the way it is in nature.
Just look there, at the flora,
How it becomes one with the fauna.

Refrain:
An old Billy Goat was scratching a young willow hard!
It was shaking it over and over again with its horns!
An old Billy Goat was scratching a young willow hard!
It was shaking it over and over again with its horns!

Lay your branches down on me
Till when are we going to chase each other?
It seems like I am an old Billy Goat for you,
You are a crying willow.
An almost done woman
An undeserved destiny.
You think I am old, but an old ploughman
Tills much better!

No comments: