Blaza Releases Album With Last Beti Djordjevic Duet

He arrived like a character out of an old black and white comedy, not like a man about to release the thirteenth album of his life: riding in the sidecar of a motorcycle someone else was driving, arms raised in the air, down Hilandarska Street and onto Svetogorska, while passersby and camera crews waited outside the RTS Club in the Radio Belgrade building. Last night, in a packed hall, Prljavi Inspektor Blaza presented his new studio album, and the entrance alone was an accurate preview of what followed: a man who has spent four decades playing at seriousness under someone else’s name while doing just one thing, throwing a rock and roll party.

Even the album’s title comes down differently depending on the outlet. Telegraf writes it as “Nocas igra ceo grad” (Tonight the Whole City Dances), while Novosti and Mondo render it as “Veceras igra celi grad” (Tonight the Whole City Will Dance). The wording doesn’t change what the record actually is: thirteen songs written back when Blaza fronted the new wave band Fiskulturno odeljenje, penned while he was between 18 and 28 years old, now rearranged and released jointly by the record label PGP RTS and Fidbox, on CD and vinyl. Damjan Dasic produced and arranged the album, Nikola Zoric of Riblja Corba handled the mastering, Nebojsa Babic shot the photography, and Srdjan Nikolic Vucji designed the visual identity.

PGP RTS director Vladimir Graic said at the launch that Blaza had “finally arrived at the record label where he always should have been.” However routine that line might sound coming from a label head praising his artist, it carries a real fact behind it: after more than thirty years fronting Kljunovi, this is his first release under a national record label. Speaking to Novosti, Blaza explained what still drives him in the business: what matters most to him, he said, “is that the music has energy, and that when people hear it, they want to sing, dance and be together.”

The album also carries duets, with Dragi and Zika Jelic of YU grupa, with Nikola Cuturilo, and with Zdenko Kolar on the title track. None of them, though, carries the weight of “Suze nisu dovoljne” (Tears Are Not Enough), recorded with Beti Djordjevic. The legendary jazz singer died on January 20, 2026, at the age of 80, and according to Blaza she recorded her part in a single attempt. “She came in for the session and got it in the first take. We said: that’s it,” Blaza recalled, adding that the singer arrived looking “dressed up as if she were heading to some reception at an embassy,” even though, in his words, she could just as easily have shown up in jeans.

What makes this duet harder to listen to than the others is the gap between when it was recorded and the end of her life. Blaza described the singer’s final months in a sentence that is hard to read as anything but deliberate:

“Beti performed the day before she passed away, which is completely unbelievable. She was in great form that evening.”

There is none of the sentimentality someone else might have reached for here, only the plain disbelief of a musician who worked with a professional right up to the end and now has to carry the song forward alone. Beti’s daughter-in-law Snezana and granddaughter Kristina were in the audience, watching the video for the track on the big screen, while the hall played back a recording that, at the moment it was made, was just another good collaboration, and today stands as the last document of a voice.

The rest of the evening belonged to the Blaza audiences already know, the self-styled doctor of rock and roll partying who has spent decades hiding behind the title of inspector without ever really getting old. Thirteen songs from the 1980s, run through contemporary production, stand as proof that the formula still works no matter how many times it gets repeated. What will make this record memorable, though, is not its sound. It is the single track on it that can never get a sequel.