A manele singer, Vlad Babasha from Bacău, performed on Wednesday evening at the first Coldplay concert at the National Arena in Bucharest, attended by over 50,000 people.
Manele is a mixture of „oriental” Romanian folk and contemporary pop music with bases on Balkan influences. The lyrics usually refer to themes of love, enemies, money, alcoholism and difficulties of life in general.
Although the young man initially said, "Tonight we're trying to break some barriers," the moment was not well received, and the audience booed and whistled as if at a football match.
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"I want to say something. When we landed yesterday, well, two days ago, I wandered the streets and heard this guy singing, so beautifully, on the street. It was as if I had seen the chancellor of Romanian music because there are so many wonderful artists. Maybe you don't understand the kind of people you have in Romania, it's incredible," explained the vocalist Chris Martin, who clearly doesn't understand what kind of music his Romanian fans listen to.
The manele singer performed the song "Doesn't your mother let you?"
The lyrics that echoed in the National Arena sounded something like this: "Ooo, ooo, I really like your eyes/ Ooo, ooo, what should I do with them/ Ooo, ooo, I think I'll pawn them/ To go buy you a ticket, Take you somewhere secret..."
However, the audience was not at all pleased, and the concert could not continue after the spectators started booing, so the music stopped, the lights went out.
After 3 minutes, the British band returned to the stage, and the fiery atmosphere created by Coldplay helped the audience quickly forget the incident with manele.
Reactions from Adi Despot and Loredana
One of the most nonconformist Romanian artists, Adi Despot from Vița de Vie, had a quick reaction in defense of the young manele singer.
"1. The best thing I've heard is 'Coldplay came and, on a festive day, instead of presenting our wife to our parents, they presented our mistress!'
2. Live & learn, corporate earthlings, what is the true value of the YouTube trend and, in general, the much-desired numbers produced by a momentary artist in the digital world, the only measure you have at hand.
3. As for Babasha, bravo, dude! To sing as you did, in front of a stadium that boos you, it's so fckn rock 'n' roll that it can't be bad. I even envy you for not being in your place, to bathe in that ocean of hypocrisy," wrote Adrian Despot on Facebook.
"I found it a very brave and beautiful idea because it's about acceptance, inclusion, about recognizing that every artist, every musical genre must be respected," said also Romanian famous singer Loredana Groza, quoted by Observator News.
Who is Babasha
On YouTube, Babasha has 104,000 subscribers, and on Instagram, he is followed by nearly 60,000 people.
With the hit "Baklava," a song that reached number 1 on YouTube's trending list, Babasha gathered over 11 million views in just two weeks after its release, as reported by ProTV.
Online Ironies
Internet users ironically commented on social media about the moment at the concert: "Not a trace of regret for not buying a ticket to Coldplay."
Someone else blamed "the organizer's marketing department for missing out on the hours dedicated to market segmentation, focus groups, market research."