Cat No MAM3232

• In 2003 Gipsy.cz exploded onto the Czech music scene. With roots firmly in Hip Hop, Radoslav ‘Gipsy’ Banga developed a vision for ‘Romano Hip Hop’, recruiting the best Czech Roma musicians and creating a new intoxicating musical mixture. Recently, the band have been collaborating with Glastonbury stars & media favourites Gogol Bordello.

• Banga drew influences from Roma rhythms, the Roma language and culture and the 200 bpm music played by Balkan Roma brass bands - and added three group members : top Czech gypsy violin player Vojta Lavicka (ex Alom, Deep Sweden...) and young brothers Petr Surmaj (guitar & accordion) & Jan Surmaj (double bass).

• “Romano Hip Hop” became the first Czech album to make the top ten of the European World Music Charts, earlier in 2007 - and Radek Banga, leader of the Gypsy.cz has been nominated as the Czech ambassador to the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All.

• The album received a good 3-star review in the November 2007 issue of Songlines : “ Gipsy.cz has something very fresh....fine pop hooks that lodge in your brain....and, there is a gypsy influence in the off-beat, syncopated rhythms provided by the un-hip hop ensemble of guitar, accordeon, hammered dulcimer & fiddle” - Mark Espiner.