While there is a big push for an association between Roma Futurism and activist art and other adjacent speculative cultural production, I would like to argue that Roma Futurism will rather be driven by organic musical practices that transcend borders. Referring to contemporaneity, starting with the fall of Yugoslavia in the early 90s and culminating with the somewhat lax open border policies of the EU in the late 2000s, Roma musicians have travelled across regions performing at weddings, baptisms, etc. for diaspora Roma communities in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France, and beyond.
These performances are not driven by any external forces nor are they framed as activism; they are the truest expressions of transnational identity and cultural continuity. These are the future. In contrast,
NGO sponsored activist songs tend to be solitary productions tied to specific campaigns and/or funding cycles. Although well intentioned, through their very nature – that of a top-down approach – these songs/activist campaigns fail to carve out a long-lasting effect. Songs that were composed as part of various activist campaigns, despite some initial popularity, were likely never performed again outside their original context. Of course, not to dismiss their effort entirely; such initiatives can indeed raise awareness and provide much needed platforms for Roma. However, to restate my view on the topic: Roma Futurism cannot be built on an institutional platform; through the very nature of the Roma community, its Futurism will categorically be organic and grassroots driven (Silverman 2024, 66-70).
One of the most striking aspects related to Roma people and Roma culture currently is the fact that even though Roma music is celebrated as a symbol of Europe’s cultural richness, the community behind this cultural product is continuously marginalized and displaced. Live musical performances and digital recordings circulate freely across borders, but sadly they unfold against conditions of exclusion: Roma presence is tolerated as part of a well confined spectacle, not quite recognized as belonging. Thus, Roma music becomes both a marker of displacement and a symbol of continuity, a way of asserting identity in spaces where political and social recognition are denied.
The flow of Roma music across diasporic spaces highlights the tension between visibility and exclusion, transforming sound into a transnational language of survival and resilience(Imre 2008, 329–335). But what is the view of the entities behind Roma music? Well, Roma musicians are not just passive participants in this dynamic. Repertoires are reshaped, styles are adapted, collaborations are made (mostly with non-Roma musicians) in order to leverage a certain degree of self-agency within transnational circuits. It’s no secret that festivals and intercultural projects can easily commodify Roma identity into an exotic “spectacle” aimed at meeting the outsiders expectancy of this ethnicity, but luckily they sometimes open spaces for dialogue and recognition. By using their music as a medium of resistance and solidarity, Roma musicians inadvertently display both vulnerability and resilience; we can use this as a starting point for imagining futures in which creativity and adaptivity become sources of strength rather than markers of marginality. Again, Roma Futurism seems to be characterized by a duality: identity is constructed in problematic spaces yet later re-signified through cultural production. In this manner, we can anticipate post-national spaces where belonging is not bound to territory, but to the imaginative power of music (Imre 2008, 334-335).
Despite public opinion, the term “Roma” does not denote one single clear stable category; there is no Roma cultural monolith, no single shared language, religion, historical narrative, self-identification, etc. Maybe this could indicate why music, rather than institutional cultural productions, becomes the most viable medium for constructing Roma Futurism. Because contemporary Roma identity is not anchored in numerous shared cultural markers but is instead shaped through external classification (Law and Kovats 2018, 21), Futurism emerges not from bureaucratic or theoretical definitions but from lived, transnational practices.
Music is definitely one such practice. Because, as mentioned before, Roma communities do not share a standardized language (Roma itself comprises more than 50 dialects, many of which are not understandable by other Roma communities)(Law and Kovats 2018, 23–24), music becomes a more “present” connective tissue than linguistic or institutional frameworks alone. Roma musicians have long moved across borders, taking with themselves repertoires, styles, and practices that resonate across Roma communities regardless of dialect, religion, and even national belonging. In this sense, music does what the political identity cannot: it creates continuity without being conditioned by homogeneity.
It is my opinion that this type of transnational practice is especially significant given the tension between self-identification and external categorization from the majority that we mentioned in the beginning of the article. As a minority, we have the right to determine what is ”ours”, what we can truly call “Roma.” And there is no better expression of that identity than our music. Romani music is not produced by political agendas, nor does it require any institutional validation.
Weddings in Vienna,
baptisms in Brussels, or
diaspora gatherings: these are the true sites of Roma Futurism, where identity is present in a live form, and not administered. Therefore, when Roma musicians adapt their repertoires, collaborate with non-Roma artists, or navigate the exoticizing spaces of festivals, they are not merely taking part in transnational circuits, but are actively building self-identification and producing new forms of belonging. Their music becomes a speculative infrastructure for Roma Futurism, a future in which creativity and mobility are sources of strength and gain, rather than markers for marginality. Music does not simply accompany Roma Futurism – it generates it.
