Does a video show Serbian singer Aleksandra Prijović singing a Serbian nationalistic song called "Veseli se srpski rode" at a concert in Zagreb, Croatia? No, that's not true: The video footage is from one of her recent concerts in Belgrade, Serbia, not Zagreb, and the audio from the video has been edited. There is no record of Prijović singing that song at her Belgrade concert on September 29, 2023, or in Zagreb.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on November 19, 2023. It began (translated from Serbian to English by Lead Stories staff):
Aleksandra Prijović sang Veseli se srpski rode in the middle of Zagreb. Croats sang with her.
Aleksandra Prijović reminded the Croats where they came from.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Nov 21 20:37:40 2023 UTC)
The song is a Serbian nationalistic song from 2020, claiming territories of the Republic of Kosovo and Montenegro as Serbian. The lyrics (translated from Serbian to English by Lead Stories staff) state:
Let the Serbian flag proudly wave from Prizren to Rumija.
Prizren is the second most populous city and municipality of Kosovo and seat of the Prizren municipality and district. According to the 2011 census, the population in the Prizren municipality was 82 percent Albanian, 9.5 percent Bosniak, 5.1 percent Turkish, 1.6 percent Romani and 1.4 percent of other ethnicities. Rumija is a mountain in southern Montenegro, between the Adriatic Sea and Lake Skadar.
If the singer had actually sung the nationalistic Serbian song in the Croatian capital, it wouldn't have gone unnoticed by the public or the media. It would have made the news and been widely talked about. Lead Stories conducted a Google search with the terms "Aleksandra Prijović Veseli se srpski rode Zagreb" on November 23, 2023, (archived here) and the search produced no results to support the claim.
Prijović hasn't yet performed in Zagreb Arena, the only concert hall in town as big as the one shown in the video on TikTok. She has performed in smaller venues in Zagreb in the past; at the Roko nightclub on April 29, 2016; at H2O on March 31, 2017; May 18, 2018, and October 4, 2019, and at Mint on May 18 and 19, 2022. On December 1, 2023, she was scheduled to perform at the Zagreb Arena for the first time.
The TikTok footage shows Prijović wearing the same dress she wore at her concert at the Stark Arena in Belgrade on September 29, 2023 (see footage of the Stark Arena concert here, archived here, starting at the 0:59 mark), and the background is the same. The audio in the video on TikTok, however, appears to have been edited: It's not in sync with Prijović as she is seen singing, and there is no record of the turbo-folk singer singing "Veseli se srpski rode" (translated to English by Lead Stories staff as "Rejoice, people of Serbia") at the Belgrade concert.
Lead Stories conducted a Google search (archived here) using the following keywords "Aleksandra Prijović Veseli se srpski rode Beograd arena 29 Septembar 2023" on November 23, 2023. The search showed no results to corroborate the claim.
