Knowra Rebetiko Rebetiko Rebetiko is a Greek urban popular-music tradition that developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, blending eastern Mediterranean musical styles with Greek lyrics about city life, love, exile, and hardship.
Bouzouki : A long-necked fretted lute central to modern Greek popular music. Its bright, ringing sound became rebetiko’s most recognizable instrumental voice.
Smyrna : A historic port city on the Aegean coast, now known as İzmir, Turkey. Musicians from Smyrna brought cosmopolitan styles into Greek urban music.
Markos Vamvakaris : A Greek singer, songwriter, and bouzouki player widely regarded as a foundational rebetiko musician. His Piraeus style helped define the genre’s hard-edged urban sound.
Smyrneiko : A Greek urban music style associated with Smyrna and other Asia Minor Greek communities. Its ornate, cosmopolitan sound contrasts with the leaner Piraeus style often linked to rebetiko.
Rebetes : People associated with the marginal urban milieu depicted in and linked to rebetiko. The figure of the rebetis anchors the genre’s stories of outlaw life and social exclusion.
Baglamas : A small, high-pitched long-necked lute used in Greek music. Its compact sound complemented the bouzouki in small ensembles and informal settings.
Asia Minor Greeks : Greek communities that lived in Anatolia before and during the population exchange of the 1920s. Their displacement and musical heritage reshaped rebetiko’s performers, audiences, and repertoire.
Rosa Eskenazi : A Greek singer of Jewish and Anatolian heritage who recorded Greek, Turkish, and other regional music. Her recordings preserved and popularized the cosmopolitan café style associated with early rebetiko.
Laïkó : A Greek popular-music tradition that developed after the Second World War. Laïkó inherited rebetiko’s instruments and themes while adopting a more polished popular sound.
Metaxas regime : The authoritarian government led by Ioannis Metaxas in Greece from 1936 to 1941. Its censorship pressured rebetiko musicians to alter lyrics and avoid references to disapproved subjects.
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