Gypsy Punk - History

History

The origin of the term Gypsy Punk may be disputable, but it is agreed that the Romani culture is how the style of it began. The Romani people, who are spread out throughout the world, have affected the music industry in the west as seen through bands such as Gogol Bordello. The Eastern European and traditional instrumentation is a common characteristic of Romani music, as well as multilingual lyrics. In the case of Gogol Bordello, the upbeat tempo and “punk scream-singing” along with those common “gypsy” characteristic create a concrete example for what is known as gypsy punk. “The word “gypsy” coupled with the term “punk” has interesting implications in that punk encapsulates a particular mode of rebellion, anarchy, and resistance in a Western context” which is good to note since at the time Gogol Bordello and other bands were really introducing this genre, “the punk movement became identified in mass culture as the definitive statement of the annihilation of musical and societal norms, collectively rejecting the rules of the past because of the bleak and hypocritical present and future they provided”. This is to say that the Roma that have settled down in the west have taken elements from “Romani music in a style that is indebted to Western punk” Because gypsy punk is a mixture of traditional music and popular music to the western culture, the Romani are colonizing and seemingly settling into a loose identity of their own. The music itself “is considered to be a postcolonial movement”.