
Artist Federik Ndoci has shared a story related to the Albanian music icon, Parashqevi Samiku, as the latter's story has resonated with many Albanians around the world.
According to Ndoc, it all started when Dem Balidemaj, an Albanian involved in the artistic community, proposed to him to perform at the New Year 2000 celebrations at an event where well-known artists such as Gëzim Nika, Aurela Gaçe, Vera Uruçi and, among them, Parashqevi Simaku would participate.
Ndoci says that Siamku requested a private conversation with the concert organizer, to whom he told him that he did not agree to perform with him and for this reason he was excluded from the concert.
According to Ndoc, on January 1, 2000, Dem Balidemaj called him to tell him that the evening had been ruined, after Parashqevi Simaku had suffered an incident during the performance and had been taken to the hospital.
Federik Ndoc's reaction:
I won't leave another not-so-professional case unmentioned.
One of the very positive Albanians from the Dem Balidemaj community called me and proposed to me for New Year's Eve and on January 1, 2000. After I asked him and he told me all the artists who would participate: Gezim Nika, AUrela Gaçe, Vera Uruçi, Parashqevi Simaku, I absolutely accepted.
Every day, an Italian friend who had a bar in Madison Square on the third floor called me to be present on December 31, 1999. Ask as much as you want, but since I had given Dema the word, there was no question. On December 27, a meeting was held, gathering all the artists and orchestra members who had a contract with Dema. We met with everyone, but Vivi had not yet arrived. We were waiting when: he comes, shakes hands with me at the door, and asks for a little private conversation with Dema. Dema gets up, goes out, and after 10 minutes appears at the door, pale in the face, and asks for me personally. He comes out and, apologizing several times, tells me that Vivi does not agree to have these two with you?!
I told him that it was ruining my nights and it was late, since I had personally organized something like this for a year.
He told me to check. I entered the room and met with everyone without at all proclaiming the objective reason that was not positive. When I went out the door I remember Deme's daughter crying and I said to Deme: I'm sorry but I'm going to ruin New Year's Eve. I went out and as soon as I got in the car I asked my Italian friend who cried with joy that I would be at his bar on the 31st. He paid me twice as much as Çek. So on the one hand Vivi did me a personal honor because I got three times what I used to get every year.
On January 1st at 12:00 noon, Dema calls me and tells me that my New Year's Eve is ruined because I had a seizure when I picked up the microphone and was sent to the hospital. He told me the reason, but I don't have to tell you.
Can you come tonight, I begged, but I told him I was busy...
I have never exchanged a bad word with him.
I offered him a job and of course he wanted 10 thousand dollars up front. My partners didn't agree so once or twice and we deleted him from the list. Then I found out that something had happened with Rita, who had been close friends.
I have never seen her in her private life, nor have I counted the wives of the scheming men who threatened her endlessly.
She was a single young girl and of course the infidelity was on the unfaithful and not on the artist who had a hard time coping with pressure from both sides.
A person is not right to judge someone by what they say, but by the truths they know and personally experience.
The title, term, notion, privilege, slogan, label of being an artist completely changes the truths of innate, earned, and often undeserved merit.
We have media artists who, in three or four weeks on TV, outshine artists who took a lifetime to reach their position with the help of the media or artistic programming or with factions or money or with political meritocracy or with the whims of parents who took advantage of a chance to become rich.
The born artist is simple.
He cries without anyone seeing him, but appears happy.
He is not at all satisfied with what he debuted yesterday, he knows his flaws and quickly understands the hypocrisy of the pseudo-well-wishers or the incompetents who pat him on the back.
It's easier to be a female artist.
The opportunity to be very good does not depend at all on birth or ability, but on her physique and beauty. Our artists differ from the world because the beauties in the world do not even try to sing because they think it is a longer, more difficult and never-ending path. They become strippers in nightclubs while the Balkan beauty tries to avoid the term striptease in nightclubs because she would be mistreated as a whore. She chooses to be a refined whore who sings with a microphone in her hand, with the help of technology that adjusts every note and the intelligence of technology brings out the perfect vocal.
Now her breasts, thighs, thongs are the chorus of the most beautiful song that a man destroyed by the exhaustion of a 15-hour workday. He has no time to read or reason why God made this modern-day woman without apples but with a microphone and does not delve into whether she is really an artist or a Balkan stripper.
A very noticeable change that occurs as a result is the reason that Balkan men are much more advanced as representatives of Western Islam, even if they are Orthodox Catholics in reality, they adore, love and marry only the singer who is the favorite of many suitors, where you, who possess her for one night, one week, one month or (sometimes) one life, are a macho and you are jealous of others who do not have your ability to be gullible and lame.
Megalomania before political pluralism among artists was not a phenomenon in general. With the dictatorship you had to be "our" artist who "sings for us", a security collaborator or a party member. Each of these labels helped 50% of the level as an artist.
Otherwise, you would be oppressed, persecuted, suffer, and be simply a number. But you would never shine if the party didn't want you to, if the wife of the bureau member or the director or the police chief didn't want you to and adore you.
Whereas with women back then, before 1990, it was very different.
They were afraid of the beautiful woman because someone high up always had a hook in front of them and it was super dangerous because besides the possibility that she didn't accept, the peco grosso who was behind her could find out and you would be burned and followed. These artists had the possibility of being unfaithful and dangerous like Cleopatra or like Mata Harri Clareta Petaqi Lili Braun or women who had the ability to hide their flirtations to be as close to the peco grosso as possible, who was waiting for information about who so-and-so was from, who was around them and whether this peco grosso was at a higher level of hierarchy than you.
Art has its own rather mysterious labyrinths, especially in relationships between artists of different sexes.
Our love affairs were like those garbage cans that sit behind the door and are used for things not as heavy as in the kitchen, but are used for a piece of paper for a candy wrapper or a walnut shell. Our lovers were flirtations with a lifespan of a few days or at most less than a year and that ended worse than being in Aruba with Escobar's mistress.
We men were not that tired and not that thirsty. While they often came mistreated, tired, very exhausted... and we were simply the fulfillment of whims.
We were mainly hunted first by spoiled women who brought wisdom from their parents who were in the structures at the time to persecute them.
but it essentially frees you if you are honest.