Born into an Olah-Gipsy Budapest family, Mónika Lakatos learned to sing from her father. Her heritage, Olah culture is itself a minority within a minority. In the culture of this people counting 20–30 thousand souls, music surrounds everything – music is their dialogue, their way of saying sorry and giving forgiveness.

Mónika’s everyday life therefore revolves around music, and as she herself would say, no two of her concerts are the same, her performance is always influenced by her mood of the very moment.

Cigány Hangok (Gipsy Voices) is a more fast-beat musical formation with pulsating, overwhelming energy, while Mónika’s solo album, Romanimo features sorrowful, slow songs of Hungarian and Roma folklore called hallgato. Romanimo was among the top 5 best albums of World Music Charts Europe.

Mónika Lakatos and the Gipsy Voices will perform this October at the Budapest Ritmo feat. WOMEX festival, at Bartók Béla Concert Hall of MÜPA Budapest.