Troja

Troja is a heavy metal band from Pristina and one of the longest-running rock groups in Kosovo. It was formed in 1990 by bassist Ismajl "Mak" Beqaj and singer Tomorr "Toma" Arifi; guitarist Florent Bajrami and drummer Visar Blaku joined the same year, and Bajrami remained the one member who was there from the start.

In the early 1990s the band played rock festivals in Peja and Skopje, gave a concert in Mitrovica and in 1994 won first place on the rock night of the Boom Festival, along with a best rock band award. Its first songs, "Ekzistenca" and "Për Bekin", were recorded before any album. In the mid-1990s Beqaj and Blaku left and were replaced by Agron Ejupi on bass and Bujar Berisha on drums.

Work on the debut album People began in 1997, but it only came out in 2003. Its title track became the band's first music video, named best Albanian rock video and awarded for its camera work, and in 2004 Troja took part in Top Fest in Tirana with "Jena na". In 2006 Arifi left; Bujar Berisha stepped out from behind the drums to sing, and Violand "Land" Shabani took over the drums. Videos for "Nuk po muj ma" (2007) and "Mbretnesha kohë" (2010) followed, and in 2007 the band opened for the Bulgarian group BTR in Prizren.

The second album, Amaneti - I Clown It, appeared in 2009. Its video "Amaneti i Clown-it" won best video at Top Fest in Tirana and awards for best group and best rock act at a video music award in Pristina, and in 2010 Troja was named best group at the seventh Top Fest. A third album, One, came out in 2015, with the video "Demokraci". In 2016 the band was nominated for group of the year at the Top Music Awards in Tirana, and its version of the old song "Mallëngjimi", recorded as "Vendi im", became one of its best-known tracks.

In June 2020 the band announced on its own page that it was splitting up after almost thirty years, saying that relations between the members were no longer what they had been and that "the walls of Troy have cracked". Among its best-known songs Telegrafi listed "Mbretnesha kohë", "Amaneti i Clownit", "A e man n'men" and "Vendi im". On the same channel the band also played "Heroi i qytetit pa lum" by Gjurmët.