Gilda-Nancy Horvath, known as Nancy Black, uses her rap to revive the Romani language and challenge racism in Austria. As a Romani activist and artist, she aims to empower her community and expose far-right ideologies.
In Austria, Gilda-Nancy Horvath uses her rap to bring the Romani language to life and confront racists, echoing a new generation of Romani artists across Europe. Her calling is rooted in politics, "to expose the lies of the far right," which is well-established in the Alpine country where the FPÖ party recently topped the polls in the legislative elections.
Thus was born Nancy Black, the stage name of this militant who is just entering her forties, known for her large round glasses and all-black attire. Her first slam, titled Trushula, was performed alone in front of her computer and resonated positively within the Rom and Sinti community, which officially numbers 30,000 people in a country of 9.1 million inhabitants. In reality, their numbers are much greater, but many choose to hide their origins for fear of discrimination.
"Encouraging them not to hide" is the mission of Gilda-Nancy Horvath, herself of Lovara origin, a group of Romani horse traders under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She has chosen to express her music in Romani, an orally transmitted language facing extinction, "which has touched many young people." From rap to lullabies for children, she also fights to get Romani artists featured on platforms like Spotify and iTunes, helping them "find their place with the general public."
Behind the case of Nancy Black, Romani women are starting to make their mark in pop culture, notes Anna Piotrowska, a musicologist at a university in Krakow. This marks significant progress, as music has long been "a man's job," with "99% of cymbal players" being male. She references the example of Viki Gabor, the Polish winner of the Junior Eurovision in 2019, who has since pursued a career in music.
These aspirations are echoed in the Netflix series Infamia, which portrays a young girl torn between her family's strict rules and her dream of making a name for herself in hip-hop. "Roms are adopting and innovatively reworking fashions," highlights the expert, noting "the popularity of protest rap" among the community's youth. This serves as a way for them to make their voices heard while they remain marginalized in the public sphere in Europe, where they number 14 million.
Even in Austria, where their situation is arguably the most enviable because they are protected under the Constitution as a minority that has been present since the 15th century and officially recognized, they are entitled to their own broadcasts, bilingual schools, and a funding pool for associations. Gilda-Nancy Horvath has long worked as a journalist for the Romani language programs of the public broadcaster ORF.
Poverty, low education levels, and a life expectancy ten years shorter than average for all other groups are just some of the discriminations the artist aims to highlight. That evening, to convey the concept of stigmatization to her audience of about a hundred, she "reverses the perspective" in a satirical text read between songs, making gadje, the non-Roms, a "discriminated minority."
With AFP
Comments