Manele is for the Kids

Just gotta post about my favourite young manelist at the moment, Ionut Cercel. And when I say young I honestly mean young: this is truly the next generation of Manele singer.



The kid can't be more than ten in these videos (although there are some available where he's a little older), but he's already a fully accomplished manele singer. His vocal technique really shines on some of his slower tracks, while remaining noticably the voice of a young boy, and there's a feeling that child stars rarely are able to put across. I like.

Still, it's obviously not destined to end well and I do worry about someone this young in the music industry. Apparently a product of an eager (manelist) father who put him in a TV show, age 4, he's now 12 and out promoting his album. Some of the pictures in an album like this are quite disturbing, especially the one where he's holding a bottle of Carlsberg. There's obviously a trend with child stars in manele (with other boys like Babi Minune) and while I guess they're adorable it's maybe not that good a sign really.

Let's hope he'll manage to outlive his child star status in any case, 'cause he's obviously very talented. (A few more videos.)