Mile Kekin's new song brings a socially engaged story and one of the most current topics today, but it is inspired by the experiences of foreign workers, migration and life in search of a crust of bread.
The song is based on a personal and family story, or it expands the historical context of the fate of guest workers.
In the poem, Kekin starts from a family memory that his mother repeated to him in two witnesses about the meeting of his parents around the 1960s in Germany in a shack for the reception of workers from the Balkans. Recalling the harsh weather, Kekin also emphasizes the social tensions of the time in his statement:
"They knew that they were telling them to go back to where they came from because, allegedly, they were taking jobs from local workers. My father, who had a hard job in a quarry together with other foreign workers from Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia, would always lose his temper because of this.
"Here's their shitty job, but the Švab won't throw a stone at me!" This is a song about foreign workers like my father. About people who willingly went abroad, did jobs that others didn't want, built other people's land, and at the same time remained a bit of a stranger forever." – explains Kekin.
In search of an authentic voice that understands the experience of living outside one's own land, Kekin collaborated on the project with Gino, Sarajlija from Seattle and the frontman of the cult band Kultur Shock. As Kekin points out, the collaboration came about completely spontaneously.
"I was looking for someone who knows what it's like to be a stranger. By chance I came across Gino and we clicked immediately. Together we recorded a song dedicated to all the pečalbari of the world."
The single brings a combination of personal witness, social criticism and musical collaboration that crosses borders, but the theme of foreign workers is voiced from a perspective that connects the past and the present.
The song is available on all streaming services.
