Thankfully, as Serbia began to emerge from its nineties nightmare, so did turbofolk. “With the prosecution of military and civilian personnel by international war crimes tribunals, and changes wrought by the expansion of EU membership, turbo-folk has muted its nationalistic and ethnic themes and transformed into a sort of Balkan pop music,” continues Lena, later describing contemporary turbofolk as “a multicultural pop phenomenon.” And it’s this ever-evolving phenomenon, which has its roots in 1980s Yugoslav mass entertainment and is more popular with young people across ex-Yugoslavia and the diaspora than ever before, that I’m passionate about.

Though still often maligned as gaudy and commercial (as pop music is everywhere), Serbian turbofolk has been increasingly vibrant and progressive since the millennium, gleefully throwing off its Milošević-era shackles in favour of female empowerment, queer performativity and brilliantly put together club anthems. What I find so compelling about the genre is its willingness to be dark, sad and angry (typically from a female or coded gay male perspective) and explore extreme emotional states while remaining dancefloor-oriented – in stark contrast to the emotionally shallow EDM that for some years has been the dominant form of commercial dance music in the West. The genre’s ostentatious videos, while emulating US hip-hop in their aspirational flashing of wealth and glamor, are often genuinely artful and progressive – as evidenced by this recent Nikolija video (by Ljubba), which I’m declaring the best lyric video in turbofolk history. Accompanying a wistful electro-ballad that codes a romantic relationship in sombre lyrical metaphors (“You’re inside me like a bullet in a gun barrel […] everything is dark except for your dark eyes”), it’s a stunning piece of visual art.