Cute Babulja

Cute Babulja is an alternative, art-rock duo from Pristina, founded by Genc Salihu and Enes Bajramliqi. Wikipedia lists it among the best-known bands to emerge in Kosovo around and after 1999, and its 2004 album is remembered as much for its music videos as for its songs.

The self-titled album Cute Babulja came out in 2004. Salihu and Bajramliqi wrote it together and played almost every instrument themselves; Arian Randobrava added alto saxophone to "Udhë të mbarë" and "Këngë nga kopshti", and Erëmira Citaku played flute on "Udhë të mbarë". The video for "Kolateralisht" (2004), made by the collective Koperativa, was described by Norient as an absurd comedy that opens in a desolate bazaar and moves into a theatre.

The band's name comes from Cute Babulja, a character in the writing of Dritëro Agolli. A 2019 paper presented at the UBT conference in Pristina calls the record one of the first alternative albums of post-war Kosovo, hears jazz, folk and art rock in it, and studies the humour of its lyrics, which mix standard Albanian with the Gheg words of Kosovo and with references to life in Pristina. The authors trace its roots to the Kosovo band Bankrot and the singer Muharrem Qena, and to Frank Zappa, and suggest it shaped later bands such as Oborri.

Genc Salihu, born on 14 July 1981 and on stage since 1995, went on to release the solo album Kangë e venë in 2011 and co-owns Dit' e Nat', a café and bookshop that also publishes music; he helped produce The Freelancers' album N'kuti. In 2014 Cute Babulja returned with a new video.