It is time for the underdog to stand up and take a bow. Currently blitzing every point on the Czech map with the group's Likviduj (Destroy) tour, Gulo Čar is riding so high on the success of its latest album, Gipsy Goes To Hollywood, that it looks like it's never coming down. Indeed, if there's any band likely to catapult gypsy music into the mainstream, it's this rumbustious nine-piece combo from Brno, south Moravia.

Working in collaboration with the organization Clovek v tisni (People In Need), which was established in 1999 to promote the rights of Roma and other ethnic minorities, Gulo Čar's musical mission is simple: Destroy the ghettos and bring about integration and unity with one of the funkiest, most soulful sounds around.

Like tectonic plates shifting beneath your feet, the Gulo Čar live experience is not easy to forget. It's not so much the hard-line polemic as the music itself that usually wins audiences over. "We give energy to the people and they give it back," singer Irena Horvathová explains. "We want to entertain and have fun all the time."

Maybe so, but occasionally flies appear in the ointment, as founding member and lyricist Vladímir Dirda recently found out. "I was really surprised by the reaction of a Gypsy woman at a concert who didn't want to hear us talking about the problem of the ghettos," he says. "Otherwise, it's always very positive. There's good energy, and we're very pleased with it."

The critics are obviously pleased, too. In 2004, the band shared first prize with Tata Bojs as Best Live Band in the world music category at the Akropolis Live Music Awards. That same year, Gulo Čar also got to share the stage with the Gypsy Kings and James Brown. The latter is said to have "fallen in love" with the band, and still keeps in touch.

The band members have come a long way from their humble beginnings in what they describe as "the Brno Bronx." Growing up in the same neighborhood, they discovered a common love of music that brought them all together.

Vladímir and Pavel Dirda, sons of noted Gypsy jazz musician Jan Dirda, first got the wheels in motion in 1994 with a band called Synergy, which also featured trumpeter Jirka Majzlik and Horvathová, then just 15, on vocals. After an excursion into another band, the tastefully named Romano Rat, they finally got the chemistry right to form Gulo Čar in 1997. The name supposedly means cocoa cake, something they enjoyed as youngsters. But, smiling wryly, Horvathová adds that it can also mean "Smokin' da weed!"

No doubt selections from the new album will be given prominent play at their forthcoming Prague bash. And it looks like the album's producer, Doug Wimbish (Living Colour),will be joining the group onstage. Admittedly, some lyrics have a Biblical touch. In a cut titled "Dzas Tuha Devla," for example: "We march oh God/Upon your path/and the song we are singing belongs to you." But with contributions from the likes of Dan Barta and MC NI Cherry Hill, there's plenty of depth to make it a real winner.

"We're expecting to win some more awards with it," grins Vladímir Dirda.