Romano Drom - Contemporary Roma music from Budapest

Playing household items — pots, cans, and spoons — alongside conventional instruments like guitar, violin, bass, and drums, Romano Drom is one of the most prominent representives of contemporary Roma (“Gypsy”) culture in Hungary. They play original compositions in the Olah Romani language in arrangements that integrate Tsollar, Lovar, Beash, and Romanian melodies with modern music from many parts of the world: Catalan rumba and Arabic and Balkan rhythms.

Singer-guitarist-composer Antal “Anti” Kovacs’ founded Romano Drom in 1999 with his father, Antal “Gojma” Kovacs (1951-2005), a singer and dancer at the heart of a great revival of Olah music and culture at the end of the 20th century. Their repertoire ranges from songs from childhood that are rarely performed now to new compositions on both contemporary political issues affecting European Roma and lighter subjects like love and drinking with friends. Their profound emotions, energy, and honesty carry on the traditions of their ancestors while attesting to the vitality and relevance of modern Roma culture in the face of marginalization and oppression.