Europe Chevron. Kosovo Chevron. This is part of Global Sounds , a collection of stories spotlighting the music trends forging connections in In , four years before Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, year-old Patrik Ukiq decided to throw a party.
Born and raised in the capital of Pristina, he had recently discovered house and electronic music after an older cousin, who had been immersed in the UK rave scene, brought back a couple of CDs.
Those led him to online forums, where techno heads from all over the world were swapping notes on new releases and foreign DJs, and eventually, to a harebrained idea: Ukiq would fly Felipe, a well known DJ, over from Vienna to perform in Kosovoβa rare thing to happen due to post-war red tape at the border; even more so for a teenager to be the one orchestrating it.
I was so happy. The trance-y, heavy thud of techno pounds out of the Servis soundsystem. Just a few days before, the city had marked 25 years since the end of the Kosovo Warβand there is a sense of possibility in the air.
At the Pristina airport, there are just as many Kosovars getting ready to travel out of the country as there are welcoming others in, a sight that would have been almost unimaginable just nine months ago. Everyone is excited. Some 13, people were killedβmany of whom were ethnic Albanians; often by mass killingsβand tens of thousands more were displaced.
