Turbo-folk is subgenre of Serbian contemporary pop music that initially developed during the 1990s as a fusion of techno and folk. The music glorified the lavish lifestyle of gangsters such as Arkan who were allowed to proliferate during the rule of Slobodan Milošević.^[1]

Criticism

Although very popular, turbo-folk is described as pseudo-folklore, while often linking it to Serbian involvement in Bosnian and Croatian conflicts during the nineties.^[1] This liberal section of Serbian and Croatian society explicitly viewed this music as vulgar, almost pornographic kitsch, glorifying crime, moral corruption and nationalist xenophobia. In addition to making a connection between turbofolk and "war profiteering, crime & weapons cult, rule of force and violence", in her book Smrtonosni sjaj (Deadly Splendor) Belgrade media theorist Ivana Kronja refers to its look as "aggressive, sadistic and pornographically eroticised iconography".^[2][3] Along the same lines, British culture theorist Alexei Monroe calls the phenomenon "porno-nationalism".^[4] However, turbo-folk was equally popular amongst the South Slavic peoples during the Yugoslav Wars.^[3]

As long as I am the mayor, there will be no nightclub-singers of [cajke] or turbo-folk parades in a single municipal hall.

— Anto Đapić, former mayor of Osijek and leader of the Croatian Party of Rights^[5]

The resilience of a turbo-folk culture and musical genre, often referred to as the "soundtrack to Serbia’s wars",^[6] was and to a certain extent still is, actively promoted and exploited by pro-government commercial TV stations, most notably on Pink and Palma TV-channels, which devote significant amount of their broadcasting schedule to turbo-folk shows and music videos.

Others, however, feel that this neglects the specific social and political context that brought about turbo-folk, which was, they say, entirely different from the context of contemporary western popular culture. In their opinion, turbo-folk served as a dominant paradigm of the "militant nationalist" regime of Slobodan Milošević, "fully controlled by regime media managers".^[7] John Fiske feels that during that period, turbo-folk and its close counterpart Serbian Eurodance had the monopoly over the officially permitted popular culture, while, according to him, in contrast, Western mass media culture of the time provided a variety of music genre, youth styles, and consequently ideological positions.^[8]

Upon introduction of Billboard Croatia Songs chart on 15 February 2022, it became apparent that mainstream music from Serbia and other former Yugoslav republics (which is all classified as turbo-folk or more commonly "cajke" by its critics in Croatia) dominated the music taste of the people of Croatia, as the only Croatian artists featured on the chart were Eni Jurišić, Matija Cvek, 30zona, Kuku$ Klan, Jelena Rozga and Grše, and the only Western artists featured on the chart were Glass Animals and Red Hot Chili Peppers.^[9][10]