Jasmin Stavros

Jasmin Stavros was a Croatian pop singer and drummer, born Milo Vasić on 1 November 1954 in Split. As a boy he played football for Hajduk, but his father insisted on music and made him learn the piano. He went through primary music school on piano and secondary music school on double bass, and took two years of solo singing lessons in Split.

He started on the drums at twelve and was playing professionally by fifteen, with the Split bands Delfini, More, Put and Mladi batali, the group that later became Magazin. In the early 1970s he discovered jazz, and from 1978 he was a studio drummer at Jugoton, one of the most sought-after in Yugoslavia. He worked with Josipa Lisac, Arsen Dedić, Duško Lokin, Mišo Kovač, Ivica Šerfezi, Neda Ukraden and Ljupka Dimitrovska, among others, and his biggest financial success was "Džuli", recorded with Danijel Popović. He also played percussion for four years at the Croatian National Theatre and in the bands of Oliver Dragojević and Meri Cetinić. In the 1980s he spent two years in New York, where he completed the Stanley Spector jazz programme; he was offered a green card but came home because of his family.

The stage name Jasmin Stavros was suggested by Rajko Dujmić, and he changed his documents to it in 1989. His solo career began after a duet with Doris Dragović, "U tebe se neću zaljubiti", and his first solo album, made in 1987 with Dujmić and Steve Cvikić, sold more than 50,000 copies. Evo mene opet followed in 1988, and the third, Ljubio sam anđela (1989), made him a star with "Umoran" and "Dao bih sto Amerika", the song about his years in the United States. It reached number two on the Yugoslav charts and was remixed with DJ Podra in 2015.

His later albums include Prijatelji (1991), E, moj čovječe (1993), Dijamanti (1995), Jutrima (2000), Krećem ponovo (2004), Nemoj se udavati (2007), Ima dana (2010), Ljubomorni ljudi (2013) and Duga je noć (2017), although during the Homeland War he recorded nothing new: he enlisted and gave more than 500 humanitarian concerts. With his band he played more than 1,500 concerts, for twenty years at a pace of over 120 a year, and he was also seen in the comedy show "Je'l me netko tražio". He kept playing the drums until 2000, and his son Milo is a drummer too.

In March 2023 Jasmin Stavros was diagnosed with bone cancer. He died in hospital in Zagreb on 3 May 2023, aged 68.