Hašim Kučuk Hoki

Hašim Kučuk, known as Hoki, was a folk singer born on 31 March 1946 in Fojnica, into a poor family. As a boy he herded sheep, and he served for years as the muezzin in his hometown. He learned to read and write in the army, which he joined in 1967.

He recorded his first song, "Nema te više Alija, oče moj", in 1964. He started out singing sevdalinke in the kafanas of Sarajevo and moved on to festivals; at the Ilidža festival in 1970 he sang "Tugo, moja tugo" and took second place. His look was something new for a folk singer of the time: long hair, dark glasses and an image borrowed from the Beatles. The weekly Vreme recalled that at his first big concert, at the Dom sindikata, the audience laughed at the young man in jeans for fifteen minutes, then, after "Pijem da je zaboravim", called him back fifteen times.

His biggest hit was "Nazdravite drugovi" in 1971, and the 1970s were the years of his greatest fame. He sang several times for Tito, which he counted as his greatest honour; Tito liked "Nema te više Alija". Vreme called him a symbol of kafana sevdah, and his songs turned up in Yugoslav film and television, from the series Kamiondžije, where Čkalja sings "Pijem da je zaboravim", to the film Specijalno vaspitanje.

In the early 1980s he left the stage and moved to the United States, where he opened a restaurant in New York. He later came back to Yugoslavia, and after the wars he appeared on television and announced a comeback album that he never recorded. Hašim Kučuk Hoki died on 26 November 2002 in a car accident on the motorway near Kovilj and was buried in the village of Sakule in Banat, where he had been living.