Rembetiko

Music of Greece
General topics
Ancient music Byzantine music Opera Greek musical system Greek musical instruments Greek dances Worldwide
Genres
Church music (Byzantine) Classical music Ionian School Greek folk Laïko Rock Hip Hop Punk Greek New Wave (Neo kyma)
Specific forms
Contemporary Entehno Nisiotika Rebetiko Skiladiko
Media and performance
Music awards	Arion Awards MAD Video Music Awards Pop Corn Music Awards
Music charts	Greek Albums Chart Foreign Albums Chart Singles Chart
Music festivals	Athens Festival Epidaurus Festival Olympus Festival Thessaloniki Song Festival
Music media	Difono MAD TV (MAD World, Blue) MTV Greece
Nationalistic and patriotic songs
National anthem	"Hymn to Liberty"
Regional music
Related areas	Cyprus, Pontus, Constantinople, South Italy
Regional styles	Aegean Islands Central Greece Crete Epirus (polyphonic song) Ionian Islands Macedonia Peloponnese Thessaly Thrace

Rebetiko
Stylistic origins	Greek folk music, Byzantine music, Makams/Maqams
Cultural origins	late 19th century Greece and Asia Minor
Typical instruments	baglamas, tzouras, oud, kanonaki, santouri, lyra, violin, guitar, banjo, bouzouki, double bass, mandolin, accordion
Derivative forms	Smyrna style rebetiko, Laïko

Rebetiko, plural rebetika (Greek: ρεμπέτικο, pronounced [reˈbetiko] and ρεμπέτικα respectively), occasionally transliterated as Rembetiko or Rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early 1970s onwards. Rebetiko briefly can be described as the urban popular song of the Greeks, especially the poorest, from the late 19th century to the 1950s.

The word rebetiko or plural rebetika is an adjectival form derived from the Greek word rebetis (Greek: ρεμπέτης, pronounced [reˈbetis]). The word rebetis is today construed to mean a person who embodies aspects of character, dress, behavior, morals and ethics associated with a particular subculture. The word is closely related, but not identical in meaning, to the word mangas (Greek: μάγκας, pronounced [ˈma(ŋ)ɡas]), which means strong guy that "needs correction". The etymology of the word rebetis remains the subject of dispute and uncertainty; an early scholar of rebetiko, Elias Petropoulos, and the modern Greek lexicographer Giorgos Babiniotis, both offer various suggested derivations, but leave the question open. The earliest source of the word to date is to be found in a Greek-Latin dictionary published in Leyden, Holland in 1614 where the word ῥεμπιτός is defined as a wanderer, blind, misguided, etc.

Although nowadays treated as a single genre, rebetiko is, musically speaking, a synthesis of the music of the various areas of the Greek mainland and the Greek islands, Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical chant, often referred to as Byzantine music, and the modal traditions of Ottoman art music and café music.

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Wikipedia