141 Nar. umjet. 47/1, 2010, pp. 141!161, A. Hofman, Kafana Singers: Popular Music, GenderP Original scientic paper Received: Dec. 31, 2009 Accepted: March 5, 2010 UDK 78.036 POP:316](497.1)"195/196"(091) 78.036 POP:39](497.1)"195/196"(091) ANA HOFMAN Department for Interdisciplinary Research in Humanities, SRC SASA, Ljubljana KAFANA SINGERS: POPULAR MUSIC, GENDER AND SUBJECTIVITY IN THE CULTURAL SPACE OF SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA This article explores the phenomenon of kafana singers in the light of the ofcial socialist discourses on popular music and gender during the late 1950s and 1960s in the former Yugoslavia. It seeks to understand how/did the process of estradization along with the socialist gender policy inuence the shift in (self)representation of the female performers in the public realm. By focusing on the dynamic of controversial discourses on folk female singers, the article aims to show how the changes in the ofcial discourse helped their profession to become an important resource of their subject actualizations, implicated in the creation of a new sense of social agency. As controversial musical personas, kafana singersq personal and professional lives show nuanced interplay between socialist culture policy and its representational strategies. Key words: kafana singers, popular music, socialist culture policy, estradization, gender politics Petar Lukovi+, a journalist, writes about the folk singer Lepa Luki+ in his book Bolja pro_lost: prizori iz muzi(kog givota Jugoslavije 1940i1989 [A Better Past: Scenes from Yugoslav Music Life 1940!1989], making the following observation: mIn the future feminist debates, Lepa Luki+ will occupy a special place: before her, women in estrada were more or less objectied, primarily treated like disreputable persons. Starting with Lepa Luki+, men had to behave differently ! it is never easy with queens, especially when they obtain the right to speak, the right to say aloud how much they are worth because of their stronger sexn (Lukovi+ 1989:123). In his short Lepa biography, 1 she is portrayed as an independent woman and important 1 Lepa Luki+qs song Od izvora dva puti&a [Two paths lead from the water spring] from 1964, has been marked as the establishing of the newly-composed folk music [NCFM ! novokomponovana narodna muzika] as a marketable genre, while she has been considered the queen of folk music.