culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

DANIELA ŞORCARU
violent”. The lyrics are simpler, rougher and more to the point than the previous
albums.
In August 2000, B.U.G. Mafia release under the form of a maxi-single one
of their best-known and appreciated songs, Un 2 şi trei de 0 (“One 2 and Three
0s”), in collaboration with Villy from Zalău, whom they had known since 1997.
Unlike the previous album, this is a commercial, open and melodic track; radios
air it, clubs play it like a smash hit, and the video directed by Tudor Giurgiu
(perhaps the biggest new name in Romanian video directing amazes everybody).
October 17, a new album is born, Întotdeauna pentru totdeauna (“Always for
Ever”), with the usual lot of collaborations, an album which sales a lot, even if it
doesn’t benefit from any special hit singles.
2001 was one of the best years in the group’s history. After releasing 2
albums in 2000, one of which had a real newspaper-like cover with an article
about the group by Camil Dumitrescu with sales of over 160,000 units, and
shooting one of the best Romanian hip hop videos ever made for Poezie de
stradă (“Street Poetry”) which used real special Romanian police forces,
directed by Tudor Giurgiu, and releasing their most commercially successful
single (50,000 copies sold), also called Poezie de stradă, the group started its
own record label named Casa Productions. The name came from an unfulfilled
older project, Casa Productions initially being a project for a record distribution
company they wanted to create. They announced this event by signing new
artists M&G, Villy, XXL&10Grei, Mahsat, Anturaj and Luchian to the label and
starting work on the label’s line-up compilation entitled B.U.G. Mafia prezintă
CASA (“B.U.G. Mafia presents CASA”). The album was released in 2002 by
Casa Productions and Media Services in Romania being supported by the hit
single “Cine e cu noi” (“Who’s With Us”), a collaboration between B.U.G. and
an upcoming R&B singer named Nico. The video was shot in a studio in
Bucharest being one of the first Romanian hip hop studio music videos and it
featured Romanian sport stars Marius Lăcătuş and Leonard Doroftei, both old
friends of B.U.G. Mafia. The compilation, which had a release party in Dumars
Club in Bucharest, sold over 100,000 copies.
Since the day they formed the group, Tataee, Caddy and Uzzi were
looking to add a DJ to their line-up as they said any good hip hop group should
have one. The few hip hop DJs in Romania were either poorly qualified or
working with other groups. This was the case of Nicolae Oncescu (stage name
DJ Swamp) too, who, at the time had been a DJ for one of the first Romanian hip
hop groups, R.A.C.L.A., since 2001. In 2002, after the release of B.U.G. Mafia
Prezintă CASA, B.U.G. collaborated with Oncescu for live performances and, in
short time, he was a full member of the group as B.U.G. Mafia’s official DJ. He
was also a member of “Turntable Science”, the first hip hop DJ crew in
Romania, but he quit so he can focus on his projects with B.U.G. and Casa
Productions. He is one of the best known Romanian hip hop DJs and is credited
with musical production both on Mafia’s albums since 2003 and other projects
on Casa Productions.
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