Bajaga: The world has changed a lot, and I managed to describe it a little

Bajaga and the instructors recently delighted the fans with the new song "21. century", which is the first released single after their last album "Ovaj svet se menja" from 2020.

And this time, the iconic musician looks back in the text of the song on current events in our region, but also in the world, from the global crisis, through the pandemic and the coronavirus, to wars.

Track "21. century" is stylistically different from the big hit "20. century" and Bajaga describes the gloomy and harsh reality of the century in which we live through rap, that is, spoken word.

Fans in Montenegro will be able to hear this song live this summer, as part of the Hype festival, which takes place from August 19 to 21 in Herceg Novi, in Tito's villa park, as Bajaga and the instructors will once again entertain the Montenegrin audience.

The regionally popular band, which will soon mark the fourth decade since its foundation, prepares old hits for the Herzegovinian audience, as well as tracks from the current album "Ovaj svet se menja", Momčilo Bajagić Bajaga talks about the repertoire, the jubilee and the past period of the coronavirus pandemic and the impossibility of socializing with the audience for Magazin.

"The audience can expect a repertoire, that is, what we often do, which is to make a selection of songs from all periods of the career of Bajaga and the instructor, with the fact that we change the songs every season and there will be a lot of hits", promises the famous musician. "There will be some songs that the audience knew, then forgot... and now they remembered them again, but mostly it will be very good and - come", he invited the fans of his band to Herceg Novi.

The audience in Montenegro during the past years had the opportunity to often hear the timeless hits of this band live, and when asked if they are happy to respond to the invitation of Montenegrin festival organizers because of good cooperation or because of the fans, Bajaga says that there is "both".

"The Montenegrin audience is wonderful, and the organizers have a lot of experience in organizing concerts, so I always like to perform in Montenegro", claims the interlocutor of the Magazine.

During the coronavirus pandemic, due to special measures, Bajaga and the instructor were not able to socialize with the audience not only in Montenegro, but also in the region, and as Bajaga says, this did not affect the promotion of the new album "Ovaj svet se menja".

"Miraculously, the album did very well because it was actually dedicated to that changing situation. As the album is called 'Ovaj svet se menja', the world has changed a lot, and I managed to describe it a little", adds the musician, and then admits that he still missed spending time with his fans, that is, concerts.

"That's what I missed the most from the whole, so to speak, show business, because it's nice to play in the studio, it's nice to play on television, but without a live audience in front of you, nothing can be as good," he concludes.

In the past period, music lovers of Bajaga and instructors received several surprises - interesting musical collaborations such as those with Vukašin Marković (frontman and singer of Irie FM), the band E Play, but also popular Serbian actor Miloš Biković, and Bajaga reveals how they came about.

"I am a man who likes to cooperate with people. It was all interesting, and I should say at their invitation," he explains.

"Miloš Biković called me for the film 'Hotel Belgrade', Maja (Cvetković from E Play) called me for 'Hotel Yugoslavia' which we made together...", the popular musician enumerates.

"... And Vukašin Marković proposed to make an arrangement for 'Neither in Heaven, nor on Earth' and then I said - if he was already making a new arrangement, why don't we do something new? We tried that, and it didn't turn out badly," he recalled. Momčilo Bajagić Bajaga and the instructors will soon mark the fourth decade since the founding of the band, so when asked if he expected "Bajaga and the instructors" to last so long, he honestly says that "it wasn't, but he hoped".

He founded this popular band in 1984, after a longer period of time he was a member of another, equally popular ex-Yu band - Riblja chorba. He wrote a large number of songs for this band, but some of his material did not fit the style of "Fish Soup", so he decided to record a solo album with the help of fellow musicians, some of whom later became "instructors".

Given that he founded his band four decades ago, Bajaga, who is no stranger to appearing in films ("Neither in Heaven nor on Earth" 1994, "Professionalac" 2003), was very happy to look back on how much the music scene in Serbia and the ex-Yu area has changed during that time.

"The music scene has changed completely since then. About every five years, it changed so much that you can hardly recognize some things from that time, because they don't fit into this time. But what was always good was that those songs that were really good - they stayed, regardless of what style they belong to," he concludes.

In the meantime, Bajaga and the instructors also announce the release of a Blu-ray and a double CD with a recording of a concert for a rock group, orchestra and choir held at the Sava Center in Belgrade in 2019, and the release will be published by Croatia Records. The Hype festival will be held in Herceg Novi for three days, and Bajaga and the instructors will perform on the second (that is, August 20) with the Split rap-rock band TBF, as well as the hosts Dejan Dedović Dedduh and Marija Đorđević Noyz, who make up the hip hop duo Who See.

The first day of the festival, August 19, is reserved for the former member of the legendary band Zabranjeno pušenje, Dr. Nelet Karajlić, and the Croatian bands Hladno pivo and Brkovi.

On the last day of the Herzegovina festival, which will take place on August 21, the audience will be entertained with music by Zlatan Stipišić Gibonni, Urban&4 and the band Silenta.

Three-day and one-day tickets for the festival are currently on sale at promotional prices (40 and 15 euros), through the gigstix sales network.