Hanka Paldum
| Hanka Paldum | |
|---|---|
| Born |
28 April 1956 Čajniče, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia |
| Occupation | |
| Years active | 1972–present |
| Spouse(s) |
|
| Children | 2 |
| Parent(s) |
|
| Musical career | |
| Genres | |
| Instruments |
|
| Labels |
|
| Associated acts | |
| Website | http://www.hanka-paldum.com |
Hanka Paldum (born 28 April 1956) is a Bosnian folk and sevdalinka singer and founder of the record label Sarajevo Disk. She is regarded as one of the best female sevdah performers of the 20th century and is popular in her home country of Bosnia as well as in the rest of the former Yugoslavia.
Hanka Paldum was born in the eastern Bosnian town of Čajniče to Muslim Bosniak parents Mujo and Pemba. Paldum has an older brother Mustafa and two sisters, Raza and Rasema. Her father was a logger and her mother wove carpets to provide additional financial assistance for the family, as her fathers salary was not enough to carry a family of seven. Hanka, the oldest female child, began helping her mother with housework at the age of five. When Paldum was seven years of age, her parents moved the family from Čajniče to the Vratnik neighbourhood within the Sarajevo municipality of Stari Grad.
Paldum started singing in the first grade, as part of the choir in her primary school. She would continue singing throughout her childhood and recalled in an interview: "We went by train to my aunt's home, my mother's sister in Rudo. There were a lot of tunnels and when the train entered a tunnel, I would sing, and when it come out of the tunnel I stopped, because I was shy. The other passengers would ask who was singing that beautifully, and I just looked out the window as if it did not apply to me. But inside, my heart was leaping with joy."
At the age of twelve, Hanka's brother Smail, a member of the Bratstvo (Brotherhood) cultural association, encouraged her to sneak out through her bedroom window and sing at the association events, promising to "cover" for her. She would sing for 15 to 20 minutes and run back home. The director of the House of Culture named Marijan Ravlić, asked her parents to allow her to sing at some local events. Her father allowed it, but with only with the presence of her older brother, Mustafa, who was no less strict than their father. Then Hanka began to sing in amateur contests, which she often won, with the award being chocolate with rice or ten tickets for the cinema. She shared the chocolates, while tickets for the theater remained unused because of her father's strictness.
...
Wikipedia