Ghetto Blasters

Balkan Reggae

Rai Baro (single)

Balkan Reggae Jstar Remix (single)

Having ripped up stages across the USA and Europe, Eastern European Romanian roots rockers Mahala Rai Banda are to blast stages all over the world with their fierce Gypsy funk. The 11-piece brass band’s blend of hard Balkan brass with minor key violin & accordion melodies has made them as a force to be reckoned with. Having taken shape on the mean streets of Bucharest, Mahala Rai Banda’s sound is 21st Century Gypsy music: rooted in tradition but with hints of dub and soul, Turkish and Arabic assimilated into their roaring dance mix. When Mahala Rai Banda hit the stage ancient Gypsy music campfire tunes blend with the raucous din of Balkan Mafia clubs.

Ever since the release of their debut album, Mahala Rai Banda's has performed over 200 concerts in 26 countries, and appeared at major festivals and clubs and concert halls. Their song "Mahalageasca" (both in its original version 

's remix) has appeared in British-American feature film 

, as well as in several other films and advertising campaigns.

Mahala Raï Banda tracks have appeared on international compilations including "Buddha Bar" (France), "Bucovina Club" (Germany), "Balkan Bangers and Gypsy Beats" (UK), "Balearic Bisquits" (Denmark), "Balkanology" (South Africa), "Rough Guide to Eastern Europe" (UK), "Rromanu Suno" (Serbia), "Balkan Beats" (Germany), "Barrio Latino" (France), "Bar Gypsy" (USA), and others. The band's music was also featured in the soundtrack album of the film 

. Mahala Rai Banda has also formed part of THE GYPSY QUEENS AND KINGS tour. 

since 2009, and have been featured on the 2011 platforming game 

Romanian Gypsy roots rockers Mahala Rai Banda who blast stages all over the world with their fierce Gypsy funk.

Mahala Rai Banda 

Dub Mixes of the Gypsy bands music. The first album where Gypsy music meets the Dreads uptown.

Since the early-1960s Jamaican music has rocked the world: Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae, Dub, Dancehall having established internationally that beautiful, troubled island as a leader in musical innovation and good grooves. The fall of the Berlin Wall found Romania's Gypsy musicians making a similar impression on the West with their ancient string bands and furious brass bands creating a groove like no other.

The funkiest of all Romanian bands are Mahala Rai Banda. This Bucharest-based band have mixed Funk and Latin flavours into furious brass groove and torn up stages across the world. In 2009, on their acclaimed album "Ghetto Blasters", Mahala Rai Banda cut "Balkan Reggae", a lovely, swinging instrumental that showed how Eastern cymbaloms, violins, accordions and trumpets could embrace a very Caribbean flavour.

Reggae in Romania? Few imagined that the Jamaican sound could penetrate so far East or that a Gypsy band could play it with such feel. Yet everyone who heard Balkan Reggae loved it and Reggae DJs across Europe began dropping the tune in their sets. As 2012 signaled the 50th anniversary of Jamaica's independence Mahala Rai Banda reached out to their Jamaican brethren and requested Dub remixes on Balkan Reggae.

The response was strong. Leading the charge was Mad Professor - the legendary, London-based Jamaican producer who has gone toe-to-toe with Lee Perry and Massive Attack amongst many others - followed by Nick Manasseh (feat. dread DJ Gregory Fabulous), Jstar, G-Vibes (feat. acclaimed Brixton Blues man Errol Linton), Vibronics, Kanka and Asphalt Tango artists La Cherga and Koby Israelite.

"Balkan Reggae" - The Dub Mixes is the first ever album where Balkan Gypsy music meets the Dreads uptown! As they like to shout over a hot mix in Trenchtown: "Irie!"

The Mahala Raï Banda, supergroup of Roma pop. Appearing at first straightforward, combining the musicians from Clejani and Zece Prajini nevertheless proved to be a lot more complex.

Balkan music tradition, oriental Gypsy pop, Catalan rumba, reggae and even Romanian manele.

In Romania, the most famous and the most gifted musicians live in two towns. In Clejani, just south-west of Bucharest, the violonists, cymbalists, double bass players and other accordion players notably formed the extraordinary Taraf de Haïdouks. In Zece Prajini, north-east of the capital in Moldavia, you can find the greatest density of wind players per square meter, including the brass players of the famous Fanfare Ciocarlia. It is in these two lost villages, in the dust, the mud or the ice, according to the season, that you find the crème de la crème, the kings of the schmekers*, the instrumentalists who are half-genius, half-rascal, capable of stirring up a wedding party with a single solo launched at supersonic speed.

Knowing this, how do you find THE great Gypsy group, a sort of Balkan equivalent of the Memphis Horns with the rhythm section from Muscle Shoals, these two being the gold standard of soul music, combining power and finesse, groove and virtuosity ? It's easy, just bring together the musicians from Clejani and of Zece Prajini! This is the magic equation, the stroke of genius, which guarantees you an orchestra - a taraf - which is hot as coals and led by the violonist Ionica Aurel. And to add salt to this mixture, invite guest singers such Sorin Constantin, Jony Iliev and Dan Armeanca, the king of the manea, forerunner of what was to become the manele, the Romanian pop of the 21st century.

The Mahala Raï Banda, supergroup of Roma pop. Appearing at first straightforward, combining the musicians from Clejani and Zece Prajini nevertheless proved to be a lot more complex. A good ensemble is not put together as easily as a martingale in bingo. There is first of all a history of encounters and of never-ending balls spent in Bucharest's wedding bands. According to the tastes and the budget of the future spouses, Roma or gadjés, according to the affinities and the complementarity of the musicians, the lautari reach the big city and form and dissolve tarafs with a variable geometry capable of playing everything : traditional Romanian music, the Gypsy repertoire of the last century, manele or vertiginous adaptations of Abba or Madonna.

original track released on "Balkan Reggae" / Mahala Rai Banda

Dub Mix by Jstar of Mahala Rai Banda's chart striker "Balkan Reggae"

Having ripped up stages across the USA and Europe, Romanian roots rockers Mahala Rai Banda are to blast stages all over the world with their fierce Gypsy funk.

Balkan funk from Romania's Gypsy boygroup Mahala Rai Banda

'...their bonkers brass-and-woodwind frontline blew back the hair of everybody present...'

Mahala 1

' ... They never stood still and neither did their audience, through 90 minutes of astonishing music...

Mahala 2

' ... Im Stehen auf der brodelnden Tanzfläche vor der Bühne, wo das körperliche Erlebnis weit mehr als nur die halbe Miete ist, machen Lautstärke und schiere Gewalt dagegen Sinn. Wer heißer brodeln will als Mahala Raï Banda, muss sich schon mal sehr warm anziehen... '

Booking

Mahala Rai Banda

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