Maneaua ucide (Manea can kill)

I can't leave Romania without dedicating a post to Manele (sg. manea), a musical trend that is, in relation with Balkan folk music, the same as Reggaeton in relation with salsa. And both Manele and Reggaeton are social fenomena that go well beyond the music to create around them a subculture, a way of dressing, a way of thinking and a scale of values.
Loud and gross taxi music usually is much more than music, and Manele certainly is loud and gross.

Manelişti (Manele singers) are as recognizable as hip hop singers are. Men usually wear bright unbottoned shirts, gold chains and rings, coulour suits and sunglasses.
Men and boys, I should say, because there's quite a few "baby singers": eight, ten, twelve -year-old Manelişti minunaţi (wonderful Manele singers) singing stories on power, money and sexy girls... and dancing surrounded by that very sexy girls in videoclips that are everything but for children.
So there's Manele singers of all ages... I think the oonly thing that changes in their loooks with the time is the growing beer belly.
And there's also femenine Manele stars, not only sexy chorus girls. Both the sexy chorus and the singers have a similar look: straight hair, long and frequently dyed white blonde or crow black; huge earring hoops on the ears; blinding clothes with broad necklines; tiny miniskirts or tight pants. I would say that singers usually are dressed in a more modest way than chorus girls (that is, they show less of their boobs).

Manele videos have a karaoke, home-made style. Banknotes, cars and girls are frequent motifs, sometimes in a verz popular environment (country roads and Romanian villages), sometimes in luxurious saloons and pools.

And lyrics? Well, apart from love (that is a recurrent theme in every musical genre), I would say that Manelişti sing mainly about success and/or community values: pretty girls and nice cars.,on the one side, and community life and happiness at home, on the other. Quite a mixture...
There's quite a few of songs that talk about easy success: the singer boasts about being rich without working, for example.
And, as it happens to rap lyrics, manele lyrics are very much influenced by current events; songs about emigration (about coming back rich, about getting rich there without working, about prefering to stay in Romania to leave the country), and there's already more than one manea on the financial crisis... So you can't say that manele is not dynamic!

But I think it's better to let the images to speak by themselves. No matter if you don't understand the lyrics: myself, I began to be amazed by this videos when i couldn't understand a word...
Just some examples, but in Youtube you can find videos enough to entertain yourself a long time... So you can become a manele fan abroad, no matter if you don't have access to the Manele TV channels that exist in Romania!

Nicolae Guta
The most popular manelist. A couple of songs: "You haven't got courage" and a fragment of "European Gipsy" ("even if I go on holidays I make money from the distance...").



Criza financiara, by Stefan & Narcis
"They say that there's a financial crisis, but I don't care, as it doesn't affect me..."


Mihaela Minune & DJ Willy
"Be careful, the wolf comes...". Sung in duet together with a rapper; manele is, above all, a party, and duets are frequent, between manele artists but also with hip hop and reggaeton ones.


Adrian, Copilul Minunat / Adi de Vito
Adrian, "the wonderdul child" got older but not taller... So he changed his artistic name to Adi de Vito (because of his Danny de Vito looks) and went on singing.

Babi Minune & Denisa
"The wonderful baby", the current heir of so many Manele children, such as Copilul Minunat or Copilul de Aur (The Golden child). Here you have a love song with worrying difference of age between lovers...