I‘m a gypsy, but I‘m also a human being. The same person like you
Josef Giňa was born on 27 July 1968 in Opava into a Romani musician family coming originally from Slovakia. His father and uncles were members of the famous musical ensemble ‘Giňovci’. He had nine siblings and from the age of three he learned to play the violin and later the cimbalom. After his marriage in the 1980s, he worked in technical services for three years, but soon returned to music. In the 1990s he worked in Brno in the Rom-art gallery and later he played for tourists in Prague. Because of the increasing racism in the Czech Republic in the post-revolutionary era, he emigrated with his family to England in 1999. There he enjoyed being treated equally to other inhabitants. He returned after a few years, but went back to England several more times for longer stays. At the time of recording in 2022, he was living in his native Opava and playing the cimbalom in the band Valašský výběr (Wallachian Selection). He has seven children, five are living in England and two in France.