Cakana

Cakana, born Dragica Radosavljević on 17 November 1957 in Kosovska Mitrovica, is a Serbian singer of folk, traditional and ethno music. She has recalled spending her earliest years in Banjska, before the family moved to Leposavić, where she finished primary and secondary school and played handball. Even in primary school she was known as a child who sang wonderfully, and at 14 she won her first singing award, the Golden Chord of Kosovo. She later came to Belgrade to study, but never graduated.

Cakana has said that Usnija Redžepova gave her the first real chance on the estrada scene, getting her to sing an old song on the radio and entering her in a competition. Her paid work began with Lepa Lukić: when a friend of hers could not go to one of Lepa's concerts, he recommended Cakana instead, and she still calls Lepa "my queen". Singing as an opening act for established stars such as Lepa Lukić earned her the money for her first album, Prvi glas Srbije, in 1991.

Rastanak (1993), Cakana (1994), Ti si onaj koji pije (1996), Idi, idi (1998), Nek' si proklet (2000), Vrata raja (2005), a second Cakana (2010) and Svitanje (2017) followed, and from 2008 she released singles such as "Bela haljina", "Crni biser", "Mlado grožđe", "Lep kao Bog", "Anđeo" and "Ikona".

Festivals have been a constant in her career. She sang "Zaljubljena žena" at MESAM in 1996 and "Ključ od ljubavi" at Pjesma Mediterana in Budva in 2007. In 2008 "Bela haljina" won the Dragiša Nedović festival in Vrnjačka Banja, and "Verujem" took the Hit of the Summer award there the same year. She appeared at the Grand Festival with "Evo me opet, evo" in 2010 and "Sama" in 2012, and in 2022 she was a guest of the Sabor narodne muzike Srbije in Belgrade, where she received the award of National Estrada-Music Artist of Serbia.

On 23 December 2024 Cakana held her first solo concert, "Koreni i cvetovi", at the MTS Dvorana in Belgrade, accompanied by Siniša Vićentijević's folk orchestra, with her brothers and sisters from Kosovo and a daughter from Moscow in the audience. She is married to the lawyer Nebojša Negić. Her best-known songs include "Žubor voda žuborila", "Ej, dragi, dragi", "Dole južno", "Umreću ti, dragi", "Ledenica" and "Osećam".