B.U.G. Mafia

B.U.G. Mafia (an abbreviation for "Bucharest Underground Mafia"), is a Romanian hip hop group from Pantelimon, Bucharest, widely regarded as one of the seminal acts of gangsta rap in Romania. Founded in 1993 as Black Underground, its original lineup consisted of Vlad "Tataee" Irimia, Dragoș "Caddy" (short for Cadillac) Vlad-Neagu and two other members, D.D. and Mr.Nobody, who, by the end of the year, had already departed from the group. Irimia and Vlad-Neagu, who were still teenage high school students at the time, had been working on amateur solo recordings and had little professional prospects on their own prior to their encounter. The group initially performed as a duo throughout Bucharest at local highschool proms and parties while considering their options for professional careers in music and, following a string of relatively unsuccessful attempts at promoting their music in English, they recruited Alin "Uzzi" Demeter in 1995 and eventually transitioned to writing in Romanian. Throughout the years, the group endured a long-standing controversy due to the explicit and confrontational nature of their lyrics. Focusing on subjects such as the post-communist Romanian political class, poverty and crime in Romania's communist-built housing projects or their recurring hostility towards Romanian Police, they were subsequently banned from many mainstream T.V. and radio stations in Romania and even at times prevented from touring, spending a night in police custody after their first concert in Drobeta-Turnu Severin in 1997. Although controversial in their incipient years, their lyricism has been praised by a number of literary figures, such as Emil Brumaru and Mircea Cărtărescu. Despite being independently produced on a modest budget over just a few months in 1995, their debut album Mafia signified the birth of Romanian gangsta rap and established them on the fledgling hip hop scene emerging at the time in Romania. They have been estimated to have sold over 1,150,000 records. They are widely regarded as the pioneers of the gangsta rap scene in Europe, being the first major group to fuse the raw, West Coast-inspired sound of 90s gangsta rap with the social and political struggles of post-communist Romania, shaping the foundation of Romanian rap.