New Primitives

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Mitovi i legende o kralju Elvisu by Elvis J. Kurtovich

New Primitivism was an urban subcultural movement that originated in Sarajevo during early-to-mid 1980s. The movement was identified with Zabranjeno pušenje and Elvis J. Kurtovich & His Meteors bands, whose members were the driving forces behind it. Its creators and most notable personalities include Elvis J. Kurtovich, dr. Nele Karajlić, Rizo Petranović, mr. Sejo Sexon, Malkolm Muharem, Dražen Ričl, Branko "Đuro" Đurić, Boris Šiber, Zenit Đozić, and others from Sarajevo neighbourhood of Koševo. Some of the people from the above group also created the Top lista nadrealista sketch show that started on radio but eventually moved to TV, going on to become another staple of the movement.

Other bands that at one time or another identified with New Primitives include: Bombaj Štampa, Plavi orkestar, Dinar and Crvena jabuka, although they quickly moved on to more commercial and communicative forms of expression.

The movement expressed itself primarily in musical (Zabranjeno pušenje, Elvis J. Kurtovich & His Meteors) and radio/TV (Top lista nadrealista) form. Film director Emir Kusturica was an associate and friend of the crew, and although his movies can not be directly associated with the movement, their spirit certainly shares some sentiment with New Primitivism.

New Primitives were actually more a group of neighborhood friends than a coherent movement. It is hard to identify many actual followers of the movement. However, the fresh spirit that the group left in the urban Sarajevo culture and a quite new way of expression, flooding directly from street subculture, attracted significant popularity.

The discourse of New Primitivism was primarily humorous, based on the spirit of Bosnian ordinary people from cultural underground. They introduced the jargon, rich in Turcisms, of Sarajevo mahalas (suburban neighborhoods) into the official musical and TV scene. Most of their songs and sketches involve stories about small people -- coalmine workers, petty criminals, provincial girls etc. -- put in unusual or even absurd situations. There are comparisons between Monty Python's Flying Circus show and New Primitives methods, as they share the short sketch form and utilize absurdity as means to illicit laughs from the audience.

[edit] The Name

The movement's name arguably came as a reaction to two then-actual movements: New Romantic in global pop music and Neue Slowenische Kunst in Slovenia. On one hand, the term New Primitivism was a clear anti-reference to New Romantic, as they sought to be anything but romantic and sugarsweet. On the other hand, they wanted to emphasize the contrast encountered in many jokes about Bosnians and Slovenians – the former raw, unsophisticated, vivid, and open-hearted, and the latter stiff, cold, serious and calculated.

New Primitives are also mentioned in Anarhija all over Baščaršija (Anarchy All Over Baščaršija), a landmark song by Zabranjeno pušenje. In the song, new primitives are violent locals who listen to Yugoslav folk music, "attack hippies" and are repulsed by everything that comes from the west. They are embodiment of what creators of the movement dislike about Balkan mentality.

[edit] Creed

According to Nele Karajlić, the creed of the movement was: "Tuđe hoćemo, svoje nemamo" ("Others', we want; own, we don't have"). That is a parody on one of the often used political slogans of the communist period: "Tuđe nećemo, svoje ne damo." ("Others', we don't want; own, we won't give").