ANTIBO*: Belgrade’s Techno-Folk Uprising
Published May, 2025
by Darko Vukić
On the streets of Belgrade, music and counterculture have long been instruments of collective expression, resilience, and social critique. From the heady days of Yugoslavia’s New Wave in the 1980s, through the tumult of the 1990s turbo-folk propulsion, to the experimental electronic underground of the 2000s, the city has fostered generations of defiant artists. One of the more vivid continuations of this tradition is Antiboemska Veselja, or ANTIBO—a “techno-folk” or hyper-folk, is a phenomenon that emerges amidst radical politics, embraces rave euphoria, and marries it with Balkan folk energy. Part subculture, part communal ritual, ANTIBO offers an inclusive, intense space where tradition collides with irreverence, and where Serbia’s past is creatively recast for a new generation.
Antiboemska Veselja has not emerged via a standard music-eventing pipeline. Its roots trace back to the student protests and faculty blockades of 2014 when austerity measures and government crackdowns sparked waves of discontent among Belgrade’s university students. Four young activists—Filip “Slatko od snova” Otović Višnjić, Aleksandar “Čiča” Ristić, Stefan Radomirović, and Nikola “Sloba” Šijak Popov—found themselves not only protesting in lecture halls but also bonding over shared frustrations with the city’s nightlife. Conventional clubs offered turbo-folk hits replete with self-pity or overt nationalism, while some of the alternative spaces embraced Western dance music but lacked the raw emotional punch of Balkan folk traditions. Turbo-folk itself had risen to prominence during the 1990s, heavily shaped by Slobodan Milošević’s regime, when media control, war profiteering, and nationalist narratives helped popularize a hybrid of folk motifs, pop structures, and ideological spectacle. What began as a musical form often became entangled with the political apparatus, offering escapism laced with reactionary undertones—an association that younger generations like ANTIBO’s founders consciously sought to challenge and rework.
7th season [link]
In late 2016, fueled by leftist politics and a refusal to let cynicism define their post-protest era, these four friends envisioned a party that would marry the emotional intensity of folk with the communal rush of rave. The name “Antiboemska Veselja,” roughly “Anti-Bohemian Revelry,” signaled a stance against the fatalistic, nostalgic bohemian clichés that so often accompanied Serbia’s musical heritage. It would be an experiment in harnessing folk’s celebratory roots while stripping away its more regressive baggage.
The earliest ANTIBO events took shape at Matrijaršija, a small DIY arts hub, at the time located in Zemun, known for its offbeat exhibits, intersectional activism, and underground happenings. Because the space was never intended to host large-scale parties, those first gatherings were notably intimate, with attendance hovering around 40 to 50 people. Word spread quietly through a secret Facebook group and personal recommendations, building a reputation as a party that defied club norms and cultivated a genuine sense of belonging. But the atmosphere of these fledgling gatherings proved contagious. By 2018, the rising popularity of Antiboemska Veselja made it impossible to remain in small DIY spaces. The collective relocated to larger clubs across Belgrade, eventually setting up shop at Plastic, a now-defunct venue that once pulsed with the city’s underground energy. There, attendance soared into the hundreds, further demonstrating a widespread craving for parties steeped in local culture and unabashedly experimental.
When Plastic closed its doors, ANTIBO found a new home at Drugstore, an iconic venue once a slaughterhouse. Known across the Balkans as a laboratory for cutting-edge electronic music, Drugstore was—and remains—the perfect environment for what Antiboemska Veselja sought to achieve. Today, monthly events can draw as many as 1,700 participants, a staggering increase from their first gatherings. Despite the growth, the ethos remains: no VIP areas, no elitism, and an unyielding commitment to reimagining the sonic boundaries of Balkan folk.
A central principle of ANTIBO is its rejection of hierarchical club culture, which often manifests as VIP zones, table reservations, and status-driven separation on the dance floor. Instead, they propose an egalitarian model where everyone shares the same physical and social space. “If you behave decently and don’t harass anyone, you’re welcome” encapsulates the group’s succinct rules. Attendees are encouraged to dress however they please, bring whomever they like (as long as they respect boundaries), and fully immerse themselves in a collective release that transcends social class or superficial notions of “cool.” This ethos has its roots in the leftist politics of the founders, who experienced firsthand the power of horizontal organizing during student protests. Their aim is not to preach ideology at parties but to embed inclusivity into the very structure of the events. No velvet ropes, no security shepherding “important” guests—just a free-flowing exchange of energy between the DJs and the crowd. It is a stance that resonates strongly in a city where many mainstream clubs still emphasize conspicuous consumption and table-service extravagance.
ЗА СУЗИ [link]
At the heart of Antiboemska Veselja is a bold fusion of seemingly incompatible sonic elements—what the founders term techno-folk or, occasionally, acid-folk. On one side lies Balkan folk, a cultural staple that can simultaneously evoke communal joy, deep nostalgia, and patriotic fervor. On the other side is electronic dance music, with its drum machines, synthesized textures, and unwavering four-on-the-floor pulse. ANTIBO’s innovation is to refuse to treat these as antagonists. Instead, they highlight the emotional and rhythmic intensity each tradition can offer, transforming well-worn folk melodies into shimmering waves of sound that ride atop pounding techno beats.
A typical set at an ANTIBO event might feature a well-known old folk refrain, sped up or pitch-shifted into a hypnotic loop, layered against granular synthesis and resonant bass lines. A tamburica, stripped of its usual context, becomes a haunting, reverb-drenched texture that floats in and out of the mix. Vocals from a sentimental ballad might be chopped into staccato samples and redeployed to punctuate buildups and breakdowns. While it pushes the boundaries of what many in Serbia consider “club music,” it also acknowledges—and even celebrates—the melodic and cultural backbone of the region.
By avoiding turbo-folk’s clichés of overwrought heartbreak or nationalistic bombast, ANTIBO channels the deep emotional well of folk without perpetuating the genre’s darker undertones. As one founder reportedly put it, they aim to transform sorrow into euphoria: “No songs that affirm self-pity. No promotion of miserable nostalgia.” It’s a form of cultural alchemy, borrowing from the past to fuel an electrifying sense of possibility in the present. Although it is questionable if Antibo is an ultra-local phenomenon (considering that a lot of its context of the sentiment stems from lyrics), would this event work out or render effectively for an attendee outside of Serbia.
From its inception, ANTIBO has walked a fine line between underground credibility and growing popularity. For the first couple of years, the organizers used no paid advertising, relying entirely on whispered invitations and an exclusive social media group. This approach fostered an atmosphere of secrecy and exclusivity, in the sense that people felt part of something special, not in the sense of class or status. Yet as crowds ballooned, the collective faced practical considerations: renting bigger venues, hiring specialized audiovisual crews, and safeguarding the experience for a larger, more diverse audience. Ticket prices, once negligible, have risen to around 9 or 10 euros—a moderate sum by many European standards but still accessible to a sizeable segment of Belgrade’s youth. Any profits go straight back into production: from elaborate lighting setups that transform post-industrial concrete into psychedelic dreamscapes to high-fidelity sound systems capable of handling the unusual frequency blend of folk instruments and electronic bass.
ANTIBO also employs a DIY approach to venue agreements. Rather than partnering on a revenue-share model, the founders prefer to pay a flat fee for the night, covering security, staff, and cleanup. This arrangement gives them total creative control, allowing them to enforce the no-VIP rule and keep the bar reasonably priced. In a landscape where larger clubs often push to monetize every aspect of nightlife, this model stands out as a principled stance that prioritizes the collective experience over pure profit.
8-th session [link]
Faced with sporadic bans on indoor gatherings, ANTIBO experimented with open-air day events, smaller pop-ups, or simply paused to wait out the restrictions. When Belgrade’s clubs finally reopened, a wave of newer, younger attendees flooded the scene, many of them hearing about Antiboemska Veselja through social media or from older siblings who reminisced about those clandestine early parties. This fresh audience injected renewed vitality, ensuring that ANTIBO’s relevance transcended any single generation of clubbers. According to the organizers, it felt like a natural “regeneration” rather than a rupture—a passing of the torch from students who once marched in protests to a new cohort looking for intense forms of communal escapism.
Beyond Belgrade, ANTIBO occasionally stages events in other major Serbian cities, such as Novi Sad (where they collaborate with the K9 club) and Niš, where they once held a memorable party within the ancient Niš Fortress walls. These expansions further illustrate the appetite for unconventional, boundary-pushing events that reinterpret Balkan folk traditions while tapping into the global language of electronic dance.
Though the four founders trace their formative experiences to a left-wing student milieu, they do not brand Antiboemska Veselja as an overtly political project. Instead, they embed their convictions in the party’s organization and atmosphere. Visitors from all walks of life, from seasoned ravers to curious novices, from punks to folk enthusiasts, converge under one roof—a testament to ANTIBO’s open-minded, inclusive ethos.
Belgrade’s sizeable LGBTQ+ community, which sometimes finds mainstream clubs inhospitable, has embraced ANTIBO as a safer space that actively welcomes diversity. Attendees speak of the parties as if they are part protest rally, part wedding reception, part rave—an improvised carnival that braids together the region’s musical roots, political undercurrents, and a shared yearning for cathartic release. The only real requirement is to respect your fellow dancers. This has allowed ANTIBO to flourish as a scene where differences in background and style melt away in the communal swell of dancefloor euphoria.
Classifying Antiboemska Veselja under a single heading—“party,” “rave,” “folk experiment,” or “subculture”—fails to capture its evolving, fluid identity. It’s best understood as a tapestry of multiple influences. The do-it-yourself ethic, inherited from Belgrade’s activism networks, shapes how events are organized. The rebellious joie de vivre of rave culture fuels the night’s ecstatic momentum. Meanwhile, the distinctly Serbian folk undercurrents anchor the party in a shared cultural memory, reconfigured for modern sensibilities. Throughout the research and data collection for this article, certain observations raised suspicions—or rather, prompted questions—about the political positioning, or perhaps the strategic avoidance thereof. Specifically, what kind of leftist ideological modality is actually being upheld here? It’s hardly surprising, given the prevailing identification of the project and its participants as “leftist,” that there remains a notable reluctance to situate oneself within a defined ideological framework. One of the organizers even commented that this avoidance—this refusal to make up one’s mind or to acknowledge the ideological conditions and broader historical backdrop that unearthed much of the folk material in the first place—is, in fact, the very point. Yet, however generative such a position might be, it begs further scrutiny.
At the core, ANTIBO remains an “Anti-Bohemian Revelry.” It opposes the indulgence in self-pity often heard in conventional folk lyrics, but it also criticizes any shallow escapism that might sever people from their social or historical contexts. By weaving in anthems of heartbreak, yet repurposing them into affirmations of communal strength, these parties propose a subtle form of solidarity. Pain transforms into collective exaultation rather than private misery. Past heartbreak becomes the raw material for forging deeper bonds on the dance floor.
Ultimately, Antiboemska Veselja stands as a potent reminder that folk music need not serve only as a repository of nostalgia or nationalist sentiment. In Belgrade—a city shaped by wars, economic strife, and a defiant cultural scene—ANTIBO reclaims folk’s ability to unite and electrify. Drawing on the carnival-like energy of Balkan weddings, they infuse the dance floor with an activist’s determination to resist the compartmentalization of nightlife into either pop commercialism or elitist techno cliques.
By layering archaic melodies over pulsating electronic beats, they breathe new life into songs that might otherwise languish in outdated cultural frameworks. Techno-folk or acid-folk, whichever name one prefers, is less about formal genre definitions than about forging a communal catharsis. For many participants, an ANTIBO party feels like a reawakening: a chance to link arms with strangers and sing, dance, and celebrate without a shred of VIP elitism or nostalgic despair.
In Serbia’s increasingly tumultuous social and political climate, such a space serves as both an escape and an affirmation. Painful histories do not vanish, but they are collectively remixed into something that vibrates with resilience. The rejection of “miserable nostalgia” is more than a musical stance—it’s a way of imagining a future in which tradition is not a burden but an evolving source of inspiration. With each monthly rave that transforms industrial spaces into throbbing caverns of sound and light, Antiboemska Veselja continues to expand the possibilities for communal celebration in Southeast Europe. As the founders age and newer faces crowd the dance floor, the movement stays dynamic and inclusive, ensuring it won’t calcify into just another trend. By uniting politics and play, folk memory, and rave intensity, ANTIBO proves that no matter how dark the times, collective joy, grounded in local culture yet radically open to experimentation, can carry a generation forward on the wings of a thunderous bass line.
Text: Darko Vukić
This article is brought to you as part of the EM GUIDE project – an initiative dedicated to empowering independent music magazines and strengthen the underground music scene in Europe. Read more about the project at emgui.de.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.