Manea/Manele

The name manea (pl. manele). has been given to a series of musics in Romania since the

nineteenth century. In its twenty-first century form manele is a vocal-instrumental genre

of oral music enjoyed by many young and middle-aged people in urban and rural areas,

but also strongly rejected by others, especially intellectuals. It is played on electric

instruments and at very high volume at shows and community parties (weddings,

baptisms, trade and fun fairs, local and national holidays), where participants dance

enthusiastically. In recorded versions, it may be heard in houses and yards, on the streets,

in vehicles and restaurants, and on private TV channels. The national media, however, do

not broadcast it, considering it vulgar, immoral, and uncouth mainly because of their

lyrics, in consonance with the fierce capitalism, corruption, and moral decay in today’s

Romania.

History

The first writings attesting to the existence of manea in southern Romania date

from the mid-nineteenth century (Alecu Russo, 1950 [1851]). At that time, manea was a

slow melody or song, probably of Turkish origin, with dense ornamentation and free

rhythm, the lyrics of which were interspersed with melancholic interjections (‘oh, alas’).

The melody of the few pieces that were notated indicates a possible similarity between

manea and the Greek folk songs known as amanedes (singular: amanes), the name of

which may derive from the Turkish words mani (poetic-musical folk form from Anatolia)

and aman (oh!). The popularity of manea declined, especially among the upper class,

with the Europeanization of Romanian society. At the beginning of the twentieth century,

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manea continued to be performed only by a handful of lăutari (professional folk

musicians), who stubbornly preserved the songs of their predecessors. It was also

performed by some traditionalist groups of Roma in a domestic setting, with rhythmic

accompaniment provided by drums, spoons and pebbles for the belly dances of their

women.

Around the beginning of the 1960s, manea reappeared in the public space after a

long absence, as a category of lăutărească music (muzică lăutărească) – urban music

originally created by professional musicians for themselves, which many people regarded

as Gypsy. The new version of manea seemed to be influenced by the music of the Indian

movies then in vogue. In the 1980s, manea was edged aside by the pan-Balkan mongrel

music influenced by Yugoslav ethno-pop music. In the 1990s, it made a comeback in

increasingly dynamic versions cleansed of the melismas that had been an earlier feature.

Now detached from lăutărească music, it confronted another music, with which then

merged: Romanian ethno-pop.

In recent years, manea has been a music for young people and the nouveau riche,

contingent with disco, performed by young musicians who, according to sceptical and

jalous lăutari, have precarious professional qualifications. In its renewed form, manea is

a popular music market leader. It is performed by bands made up of vocalist, electric

violin, clarinet, accordion, electronic organ, and numerous percussion instruments of

various origins.

Characteristics of Manea

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 The new manea’s primary focus was an idealization of money as the key to social

success and values the devious behaviour that enables its accumulation (for example, a

lyric might say something like ‘They are wondering, my foes / How I’m making so much

dough / Maybe it’s a bank I robbed / Maybe it’s a deal I struck…’). The first to take it up

in this new form were those who had become the country’s nouveau riche as a result of

the transition to a free market. However, manea also seduced ordinary people, as it makes

wealth and the key to it symbolically accessible. With this audience in mind manea

singers promptly embarked upon “new” topics: love, devotion to one’s family, life

perpetually sabotaged by enemies, emigration to the West. In recent years, manea has

borrowed gripping subjects from the news: the tragedy of Elodia (a woman allegedly

killed by her policeman husband), corruption, political events of the day, etc. Its lyrics are

prosaic, often vulgar, sometimes featuring more elaborate phraseology originating in

traditional poetry.

From concert posters, record jackets and TV videos, manea has built an

iconographic world populated with luxury cars, scantily-clad women (Gypsy skirts, veils,

miniskirts, tight jeans, high heels, etc.), macho males in pseudo-negligent clothing with

Gypsy marks, fairytale castles with Oriental rugs and extravagant Western comfort: a

chaotic mix of Western and Eastern symbols.

The distinctive musical element of the genre is the syncopated metric-rhythmic

structure clearly expressed by accompaniment:

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Manea melodies can be simple, with standardized, predictable phrases (the connection

between manea and Central-European folk and popular music). Nevertheless, they can

also be indebted to different ethno-pop melodies from other Balkan and Middle-East

countries - Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Izrael - in which case

the vocal timbre and some ornaments are similar to the “Oriental” ones. Manea’s usually

trochaic octosyllabic lines have paired rhymes (the connection with all the oral tradition

musics of Romanians).

Present-day manea is undergoing an accelerated stylistic transformation. It bears

little resemblance to the richly-ornamented manea of the nineteenth century, or to the

manea of the 1970s, or even to that of the 1990s (which was still close to traditional

urban music). It gradually steered towards westernization, as Romanians became more

and more oriented towards Europe, and slowly turned into a different popular music.

After undertaking musical globalization in the south-east of the continent, manea it is

seeking access to the outskirts of the Western world. Similar paths have been followed by

several musics of the Balkans and Middle-East: arabesk in Turkey and the neighbouring

countries, skyladiko in Greece, turbo folk in Serbia, sevdalinkas in Bosnia and Serbia,

chalga in Bulgaria, tallava in Albania, and muzika mizrahit in Israel.

Performers

Manea performers are lăutari, professional folk musicians who specialize in

enlivening rural and urban feasts, and whose duty is to know all the fashionable musics of

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their time. Most lăutari are Roma, hence the belief among many Romanians that manea

is a Gypsy music. This view is supported by the fact that its geographic origin is

impossible to determine; it comes from everywhere, yet nowhere in particular. Many

Roma, especially among traditionalist musicians, reject this attribution: in their opinion,

manea is a Balkan music. Nevertheless, they may end up accepting it under the pressure

of the media and Roma organisations interested in quickly identifying the “Gypsy music”

they need.

In the 1970-80s, manea makers and performers were also experts of lăutărească

music, all of Roma origin: Romica Puceanu, Gabi Luncă, Aurel and Victor Gore. The

“new” manea stars (manelişti) are Florin Salam, Nicolae Guţă, Adrian Minune, Sandu

Ciorbă, Cristi Nucă and many others. Among them are a few women: Roxana, Narcisa,

Denisa, Claudia... The stars are in fierce competition with one another, and fans of the

genre periodically revise their ranking in unofficial top charts. Their manele are taken up

and performed by ear by all the lăutari in Romania, each according to his own ability.

Manea as Music of Contest

Manea is the music by which ordinary people oppose the ossified “folklore” of

the official folk ensembles and orchestras; it denounces the post-romantic ideal of

“millenary folklore” as a guarantor of national “purity” and “specificity”; and it defies the

declarative ethical standards of society. Manea is the music of needy, uneducated people

who aspire to the status of the rich who rose through their ranks by means of

unscrupulous dealings. It is at the same time the instrument by which Roma musicians

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emotionally manipulate Romanians, avenging several centuries of bondage and

discrimination.

Manea is enjoyed by most Romanians, but at the same time despised by people

from all social classes. Its fiercest enemies are old people (among which are numbered

the “old-fashioned” Roma lăutari), to whom the new manea is incomprehensible, and

intellectuals, who criticize it for ethical, aesthetic, and perhaps xenophobic reasons.

Inspite of their opinion, manele were the main popular music in Romania for almost 15

years.

Eclectic, brutal, difficult to demarcate from other popular music genres, manea, a

disturbingly faithful reflection of the society in which ordinary Romanians live, is a

major genre in Romania whose supremacy is undermined by the very quality to which it

owes much of its success: its strong anchoring in the present time.

Bibliography

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Ciobanu, Gheorghe, 1967.’Folclorul orăşenesc’ [Urban Folklore]. In Studii de

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Speranţa Rădulescu, Costin Moisil and Florin Iordan, Translated by Adrian Solomon

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Speranţa Rădulescu, Costin Moisil and Florin Iordan, Translated by Adrian Solomon