Usnija Redžepova

Usnija Redžepova was a folk singer from Skopje, of Romani and Turkish descent, who spent most of her life in Belgrade. She was born on 4 February 1946 and sang folk songs from across the Balkans in Serbian, Romani, Macedonian and Turkish, releasing 15 singles and EPs and nine albums.

As a girl she took part in a Radio Skopje contest in 1963, singing a twist song by Radmila Karaklajić. After high school she moved to Belgrade in 1964 to study Arabic at the Faculty of Philology. To support herself she sang in kafanas, where the Macedonian musician Naško Džorlev invited her into his band. They toured Yugoslavia for five years.

In 1966 she made her first records for Jugoton. Because Esma Redžepova, no relation, was already on the label, she recorded as Usnija Jašarova, a name taken from her father, Jašar. Her first EP was sung in Macedonian with Ivanka Jovanovska, and the next ones were Romani folk songs. In 1971 she released her first Serbian-language single, "Ne pitaj za moje ime", with PGP-RTB, now under her own name.

In 1973 Muharem Serbezovski introduced her to Žarko Jovanović, who cast her in the title role of Koštana at the National Theatre in Belgrade. She sang the part there until 1999, about 150 times on stage. In 1974 she appeared as a singer in the film Death and the Dervish, performing "Gelj gelj".

She was a regular at Yugoslav festivals: Ilidža in 1971 and 1972, the Yugoslav festival in Paris in 1975, Hit Parada in the late 1970s and 1980s, and MESAM. Her hits included "Kazuj, krčmo, džerimo", "Rasule se kose moje", "Živote moj", "O, pesmo moja", "Ja sa juga, ti sa severa", "Šta hoćeš" and "Oko Niša kiša". She sang for Tito and Fidel Castro, and toured Arab countries and the West.

Esma Redžepova and she were close friends. They released Songs of a Macedonian Gypsy together in 1994, and in 2006 sang "Mi smo posestrime" as a duet at the Grand festival. Usnija Redžepova kept releasing albums until 2007, and in 2011 received a Serbian national pension. She died in Belgrade on 1 October 2015, aged 69, and was buried at the Butel cemetery in Skopje.