Family Y
Bílá / Kale
Věra Bílá & Kale
Czech / Slovak Roma
Style: Vlax song & Central European families
Rom-pop from the Czech-Slovak lands. Věra Bílá took Romani-language song to a public stage with backbeat and guitar.
Věra Bílá (22 May 1954, Rokycany – 12 March 2019, Plzeň). Giňa clan. Father Karol/Karel Giňa, singer. Birth name / alternative Věra Giňová (RomArchive). Heart attack; Faculty Hospital Plzeň (iDNES / Radio Prague).
Kale took public form in 1995 (RomArchive, Inka Jurková): related young men of Rokycany — Emil “Bišu” Miko, Emil “Pupa” Miko, Jan Dužda, Deziderius Lučka, Milan Kroka (later Marek Miko). Genre they named: Rom-pop. Songs in Romani, also Czech and Slovak.
Earlier private/local band from 1986 (Emil Miko, Paměť národa). First CD: Miko says 1995; RomArchive files RomPop 1996 — both stand. Kale Kalore 1998. Split 2005: Kale continued without her (RomArchive). Film Black and White in Colour 1999 (Mira Erdevicki-Charap).
From the 1990s, Věra Bílá & Kale put Romani-language identity on a festival stage after decades when the slow songs stayed inside the settlement.
Ida Kelarová is a neighbour of this family. Dežo Dužda sat in Kale then Romano Rat with Kelarová — a hinge chair, not a merger. “Queen of Romany” and Ella Fitzgerald comparisons are journalists’ lines, not a community crown.
Lineage
Birth and death on a vertical line — generation by generation. Places are listed where we could find them.
Generation 1
Věra Bílá
Voice, Rom-pop · 1954–2019
Born 22 May 1954 · Rokycany — Died 12 March 2019 · Plzeň
Giňa clan. Father Karol/Karel Giňa, singer. Birth name / alternative Věra Giňová (RomArchive). Heart attack; Faculty Hospital Plzeň (iDNES / Radio Prague).
Generation 2
Kale
Rom-pop · public form 1995
Emil “Bišu” Miko, Emil “Pupa” Miko, Jan Dužda, Deziderius Lučka, Milan Kroka (later Marek Miko). RomArchive.
Orchestra years
When the band was founded, when it split, when a new generation took the stand.
1995–2005
New orchestra
Rom-pop
Věra Bílá & Kale
Czech-Slovak Romani-language songs on a public stage; Kale continued after the 2005 split without her.
Neighbours
Same country or city, but a different way of playing.
- Oláh (Rinaldo) — Slovak Roma — Zvolenská Slatina