For the first of a three-part series, London-via-Zagreb based collective Nebo Arts invite Peđa Radović - the internet’s authority on rare music from Yugoslavia and one of the most extensive archivists of records from the former region, for an hour selection of finds from the second-hand shops, records stores and classified ads of the area.
Peđa's online music uploads have caught the attention of not just Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia’s youth, but also diggers and producers worldwide. Some of these unearthed jazz/funk records have ended up as samples on projects from the likes of Madlib, Kendrick Lamar, Earl Sweatshirt, The Alchemist, and Lord Apex.
To put it in Peđa’s own words -
“The circle has closed: The Yugoslavian jazz scene came to fruition when Bojan Adamič, through Tito, fought for the establishing of so called ‘big bands’ on national radio-television platforms, formed at the end of the 1940’s in each of the republics. These bands played jazz standards from across the ocean in the USA - only for those same recordings to now be used by American producers, to create new music from ours.”