That record became our map. It wasn’t a commercial release; it was a mixtape from our cousin who’d been a truck driver across the broken highways of the former Yugoslavia. He’d collected 45s from Zagreb flea markets, cassette tapes from a kafana in Banja Luka, and a DAT recording from a basement club in Skopje. He’d spliced them together, creating a sonic Yugoslavia that no longer existed on any political map.
She shrugged, pulling out her earbuds. “It’s just good music, tata. It’s not political.” Ex-Yu Rock- Pop- Hip-Hop The Best Of World Music
“World music?” I scoffed, already trying to sound like the cynical teenager I wasn’t. “This is just our stuff.” That record became our map
Then the second track starts: Jedi moju hladnu by Hladno Pivo. A girl named Amira, who lost her uncle in Vukovar, looks up. She starts bobbing her head. A boy named Srđan, whose father fought in the siege of Sarajevo, taps his foot. I hold my breath. He’d spliced them together, creating a sonic Yugoslavia
But last week, I was cleaning out my daughter’s room. She’s fifteen now, the same age I was at that party. She had a Spotify playlist open on her laptop. The title was: Ex-Yu Rock- Pop- Hip-Hop: The Best of World Music .
“Where did you find this?” I asked, my voice cracking.
We didn’t talk about politics. We talked about the bass drop. We argued about whether Idoli or Električni Orgazam had the better guitar riff. We passed a bottle of cheap juice spiked with something stronger. For four hours, the only country that existed was the one pressed into that black vinyl—a country of distorted guitars, sixteen-bar verses, and three-part harmonies sung in four dialects.