Esma Redžepova

Esma Redžepova was a Macedonian Romani singer, songwriter and humanitarian, called "the Queen of the Gypsies". She was born on 8 August 1943 in Topaana, the Romani quarter of Skopje, and sang for more than five decades. NPR listed her among the 50 great voices of the world.

As a schoolgirl she sang at a Radio Skopje talent contest against her parents' wishes. There she met the accordionist and arranger Stevo Teodosievski, who heard her sing the Romani song "A bre babi sokerdžan" and became her mentor, and in 1968 her husband. With his Ansambl Teodosievski she began her career in the 1960s. Because of prejudice against Romani music in Skopje, the couple moved to Belgrade. In 1962 she was the first Yugoslav artist to perform at the Olympia in Paris, and her signature song of the mid-1960s was "Čaje šukarije".

She was the first Romani singer to perform in Romani and Macedonian for non-Romani audiences, and the first Macedonian woman to appear on television. She sang in Greek, Turkish, Hebrew and Hindi too. In India in 1976 she and Teodosievski were named Queen and King of Romani music, and she sang for Indira Gandhi in 1983. The couple also ran a music school where 47 disadvantaged boys were trained, and she was a mentor to singers such as Muharem Serbezovski and Usnija Redžepova.

In 1989 she settled back in Skopje, and in 1994 she released an album of duets with Usnija Redžepova. Teodosievski died in 1997. In the 2000s she reinvented herself as a world music artist, working with the trumpeter Frank London and the composer Duke Bojadžiev. She sang a Romani verse on "Dani su bez broja" with Magazin and recorded "Magija" with Toše Proeski, both in 2002. She sang on Kaliopi's 2004 hit "Bel den", and "Ljubov e" with Adrian Gaxha came second in a Eurovision selection. "Čaje šukarije" was used in the 2006 film Borat, and in 2008 she signed with the German label Asphalt Tango.

She recorded more than 580 songs, won two platinum and eight gold records and gave over 22,000 concerts, a third of them for charity. In 2010 she received the Macedonian Order of Merit, and in 2013 she was named National Artist. That year she represented Macedonia at Eurovision in Malmö with Lozano, singing "Pred da se razdeni", which placed 16th in its semi-final.

Esma Redžepova died in Skopje on 11 December 2016, aged 73, and was buried at the Butel cemetery.