*Van nekem egy kopott gitár* is the debut album of Roma Jilo (“Gypsy Heart”), a Hungarian Roma ensemble led by singer and songwriter Ernő Horváth. Emerging from Heves County, the group developed a style rooted in Roma musical traditions while combining guitar, tambura, water can, oral bass and multipart vocals with contemporary elements such as synthesizers and programmed drum grooves. Released by Proton Records in 2002, the album documents an early twenty-first-century approach to Hungarian Roma popular folk music in which traditional instrumentation, vocal practice and melodic language are adapted to commercial studio production. The recording is particularly representative of the period in which Roma ensembles in Hungary negotiated continuity with community-based musical traditions alongside increasingly modern popular-music arrangements.
