Latino

Latino is a Croatian band founded in 1985 by the singer and songwriter Željko Krušlin Kruška, who leads it. In the 1990s, as the Slovenian portal 24ur put it, Kruška and Latino set off a wave of "latinomania" in Croatia.

On 12 March 1995 Latino sang "Ne kunem ljubav", written by Kruška, at Dora, the Croatian Eurovision selection, held in the Crystal Hall of the Hotel Kvarner in Opatija, and finished tenth of twenty with 27 points. The same year the band played a concert at Šalata in Zagreb in front of about 10,000 people. In 1998 they set out on a humanitarian tour, "Vašem gradu na dar", through twenty Croatian cities, and they have released six albums.

Their best-known songs include "Gdje je ljubav tu si ti", "Gdje si bila cijelu noć", "Tebe noću dozivam", "Zaboravi me", "Sve moje nježnosti", "Vjerne djevojke" and "A joj". Kruška's ballad "Divno je biti nekome nešto" is, as Total Croatia News wrote in 2017, often chosen for the first dance at weddings.

Kruška also writes music and lyrics for other performers, and he wrote "Pakleni stroj", the anthem of the Croatian national handball team. In 2011 he launched "Kruška i prijatelji", in which he sang his biggest hits with friends such as Arsen Dedić, Željko Bebek, Kaliopi, Crvena jabuka, Kemal Monteno and Jacques Houdek. The first duet was "Smotala si me" with the Slovenian singer Nuša Derenda, who sang it as "Zavrtel si me". In 2017 he showed his drawings for the first time, at the Bogdan Ogrizović library in Zagreb.

Latino's music videos are collected here in one playlist.