The Guardian for the Sunny Hill Festival: Kosovo we don't know, music talents that make its map famous

Dukagjin Lipa has always wanted to organise a necessary “festival to put it on a cultural map and prove that Europe's newest nation can define more than conflict and scandal.

His task became much easier when his daughter, I Love Lipa, became world famous last year by ranking first on the international market with hit “ @les1>. Now, 22-year-old will sing at a festival in Pristina this week, which the family hopes to promote Kosovo's image abroad. “We want to give people a sense of belonging, European living and the idea that we are part of Europe”, Dukagjin Lipa has told Oobserver. “This is the best way to promote Kosovo as a peaceful and music-loved country that welcomes all our neighbours and all visitors who want to entertain”.

I want Lipa, who with Calvin Harris, continues to be in first place in Great Britain with their latest song “One Kis”, is the largest of the three Dukagjini children who left Kosovo with his wife in 1992, and settled at West Hampstad in London. The family spoke English and Albanian at home and I want Lipa has often expressed pride in her background from Kosovo, publishing for 15 million of its Instagram followers, photographs of books written by her grandfather, who was head of the Kosovo Institute of History.

This is not the first time the festival “Sunny Hill” is organised in Kosovo. I want Lipa met with the mayor of Pristina and with the president of Kosovo at the concert held two years ago. Back in my hometown to perform, it's an extraordinary “experience, I want to do it at the time.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008, almost a decade after a NATO bombing campaign against the Serb-dominated Yugoslav state. Earlier this year, it celebrated 10 years since independence, but the new nation still has major challenges on the road to full citizenship: non-recognition by many countries, including China, India and the five EU countries; high unemployment and poverty rates; and continuing claims on those close to the government of political corruption and links to organised crime, wrote further The Guardian.

Kosovo's relations with Serbia, which still claim the territory is theirs, are tough. Tensions are again high this weekend, which is Pristina's deadline to offer a new framework for Serb majority areas. With more difficult negotiations to come with Belgrade in the near future, the Lipa family hopes that, for a while, the festival will change the news agenda about Kosovo.

A large-scale music festival has not been organised so far in Kosovo. Tickets for “Sunny Hill” has a 55-euro prize for all three days -- a prize with the European standards of the festival and money to be affordable for young music fans in Kosovo.

Although Kosovo has a population of less than two million people, it has shown a partial ground for musical talents, such as singers: Rita Ora, who has world fame, and Wind Istreff, who sang with Will Smith in the World Cup final last month. Dukagjin Lipa was trained as a dentist, but also was a singer, part of a group named “Oda”, which will also perform at the festival, quoted the festival as saying. The GuardianTelevision broadcast.

Memli Krasniqi, former minister of culture in Kosovo, said: “in the 1990s and in the early 2000s, it was difficult for anyone to come out. Rita Ora and I want Lipa did it in Great Britain, but they made us proud to help put Kosovo on the map.

With dual music success, as well as the gift of Kosovo-born footballers such as Granit Jaka and Gerdan Shaqiri during the World Cup, the country's international perception is beginning to change.

When we became independent in 2008, a call was made to show people that this is a real place that exists and not only the images you have in a war-torn country”, said Kreshnik Hoxha, who was born in Kosovo in 1987 but moved to Britain to make its A levels, scale and PhD, and currently works on pharmaceutical research at Oxford. “I think, now, image is changing slowly. It's very encouraging to see Rita Hour or I want Lips that are very well integrated into Great Britain, but embrace both nationalities “.

Dukagjin Lipa agreed that, slowly, Kosovo's image in Britain is changing for the better, passing a few repetitions since he moved to 1992: “When they first came to London, we told people we were from Kosovo and nobody knew where he was. Then, later, everyone would say: “Oh, sorry”. It was good people had empathy, but I don't want to remember. Then, with all the riots we had, some parts of our society's troubled sector emigrated and when we said we were from Kosovo, people thought about drug dealers or criminals. We want to show a very different image”, the singer Lipa's confession concludes. /Telegraphy/