Parlophone

Rebetiko is an urban Greek popular song tradition that crystallized in the port cities of Piraeus, Thessaloniki, and the broader Aegean world after the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922. It emerged among refugees and working-class communities, drawing on Ottoman/Turkish makam-based modal practice, Byzantine-liturgical melos, and Greek rural folk song (dimotika), then transforming these into a distinctly urban sound. Typical rebetiko pieces are strophic songs led by bouzouki or baglamas, often prefaced by an improvised modal solo (taximi). Rhythms center on social dances such as zeibekiko (9/8, usually grouped 2+2+2+3), hasapiko (2/4 or 4/4), hasaposerviko (fast 2/4), karsilamas (9/8), and tsifteteli (4/4). Lyrical themes can be raw and direct—love, exile, poverty, prison life, hashish dens (teké), pride, and the ethos of the underworld (mánges)—frequently expressed with argot and melismatic vocal style. Over time, rebetiko evolved from the Smyrna-style ensembles of oud, violin, and santouri to the Piraeus style centered on trichordo bouzouki, baglamas, and guitar, and later fed directly into the development of laïko and modern Greek popular music.