What we have been trained for many years to approve as acceptable in our global video culture, is violence. Films, games, music videos too. What’s been portrayed most often is the violence that goes hand in hand with criminal behavior and serves as a way of acquiring immense wealth and respected status in a society. This could be seen as a default script of any music video or film.

While we can trace the influence and inspiration in American hip-hop culture to many of the music videos in Serbia, since the 1990s onwards, they are becoming very popular nowadays in the trap music scene that is mostly aimed at younger audiences. Relativization of violence and crime go deep into the roots of urban culture in this geographic area, and therefore it was interesting to observe how throughout different music genres and periods, this subject has been treated by the artists. To be on the other side of the law comes as empowerment to some and as a revolt to others.

Artist: Sunshine
Track: Kokane (Serbia, 1997)
Label: Metropolis Records

Belgrade’s band Sunshine released this great hit in 1997. The song features their original and recognizable style, a mix of hip hop and hard rock. The title itself has a small twist to avoid literal and quite obvious allusion to the subject of the song – cocaine. Lyrics and small intervention in the music video itself, create the usual, well-known script of a powerful narco-boss who enjoys common material pleasures – fancy cars, money, houses around the world and who is untouchable to the authorities and beyond the law. The song demonstrates the ultimate power of the cocaine dealer through energetic, bad-ass music style.

Artist: Ila feat Vule
Track: Sam svoj gazda (Serbia, 2007)
Label: Take It Or Leave It Records

This hip hop duo established themselves in the 1990s and by 2000s they reached significant commercial success, touching upon mainstream with a few of the hits. The lyrics of this song portrait a tough guy who’s «his own boss» (song title). He has power, he is untouchable, he has bodyguards, cars, girls, lives in a villa with expensive stuff inside such as jacuzzi, Sony TV, surveillance etc. Plaster lions on the house facade that the lyrics mention, in Serbia very often symbolize lower working class that got rich by working hard abroad. They were characteristic in the 1990s.

Artist: Repetitor
Track: Ako Te Ikada (Serbia, 2016)

This music video is a track from the third album by Serbian garage-post punk noise rock trio Repetitor. Unlike other music videos in this playlist, this one stands out as it takes a completely different approach. Instead of building a fictional story about a (male) character who is beyond the law, members of this band face the delinquents directly in the Belgrade District Prison where the video was shot. They made a concert for the inmates, during rehabilitation through art programme, organized by Prison treatment service. In this video, band members sort of identify with the prisoners, deleting the strict boundaries between them as they are inside of the prison gates, playing for the prison audience just like at any other concert venue, acting relaxed among the crowd. The song lyrics imply physical violence caused by the jealousy in (or after) a love affair. In terms of music, in their own words, the band expresses a burst of rage, fear, violence, pain, and anxiety.

Artist: Jelena Karleuša feat Teča
Track: Krimi rad (Serbia, 2012)
Label: City Records

Serbian turbo-folk star Karleuša brings the female character into the well-known scenario. Male and female singers are modern Bonnie and Clyde. Murders, drugs, guns, cash, travels, and first class flights – both of them are dominant and superior, untouchable. The song is a «re-do», of «Criminel» by TLF.

Artist: Coby and Mili
Track:Južni vetar gas (Serbia, 2018)
Label: Bassivity Digital

Cash, cars, guns, alcohol, and a Serbian flag. Default scenario that’s been a predominant pattern in the majority of today’s Serbian trap music (maybe minus the flag), especially that one related to the label Bassivity Digital. This video is related to a film and series about a local criminal from Belgrade who is a car thief. Being depicted in a positive light, the mentioned lifestyle is probably aimed to inspire younger audiences who make most of the crowd at concerts of this kind of music. These kinds of music videos could be seen as an encouragement for younger people to embrace even more the materialistic culture and hyper-consumerist habits.