Picikato Brass Band feat. Vietnam St. Rap Unit

line up

• Asanov Ajnur (trumpet)
• Asanov Dzengis (baritone)
• Asanov Musli (baritone)
• Asmedov Bilent (tuba)
• Bajramov Nusret (trumpet)
• Kemp (rap revolt)
• Neli (stutter jitterbug)
• Rasidov Erbil (drumkit & tapan drum)
• Selman Mendo (saxophone)

• country:
  Macedonia, Republic of
• region:
  Balkan
• style(s):
  Brass Rap
• label:
  not signed
• type:
  Band
• gender:
  male
• instrumentation:
  instrumental, vocal
• artist submitted by:
  Okopi slave / Amare Droma - Etnofonija / RTVSLO

PICIKATO BRASS BAND
Skopje, Macedonia

The band was formed in the year 2000 by the Roma Skopje sax player Mendo Selman. For the last few years it has been the youngest top-ranking brass band in the area, most of the musicians in their twenties radiating sharp gipsy new wave energy.
In July 2004 the band toured Sweden with the Swedish band Superstar Orkestar. They also appeared and played music in the Macedonian hit film Balkan-kan, a black comedy by the director Darko Mitrevski (its premiere at the Venice 2004 film festival), seen by 90.000 Macedonians.
In summer 2005 Picikato Brass Band gave first successful performances around European world music festival network. The wildest and most notable were performances at the Sfinks (Antwerp, Belgium) and Sziget (Budapest, Hungary) festivals. In 2006 and 2007 they played at diverse locations, ranging from Wintervuur festival (Antwerp, Belgium) to Jazz M59 (Graz, Austria) and dozens of locations around ex-Yugoslavia (Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Mostar, Dubrovnik). In 2007 the band was invited to join the ambitious international theatre co-production Tito Certain Diagrams of Desire and for a couple of months performed with it, also at festivals in Italy, Germany, Croatia and Slovenia.
The band has also won high reputation on their home turf. In 2006 the first Truba fest, the new competition of new wave of Macedonian brass bands, was held in Kumanovo, Macedonia, and Picikato won the first prize of the audience and the second prize by the jury. In autumn 2007 they moved right to the top winning the first prize of the Truba fest jury and now they are officially considered the best brass band among the Macedonian Roma brass "new wavers".
Their recent 2008 project is definitely a provocative one, as they have joined forces with the top Roma rappers from the local Sutka Vietnam street, the hard hitting Kemp, the oddball Neli and the smooth Al. A Roma brass band and a rapper shouting about police, discriminiation, ghettos? Finally...

Links

• Sutka United Soundclick Page
• YouTube PIcikato BB
• At Geocities