Rebetiko is a kind of Greek music, popular among Greek people around the world. Its origins can be found around 1850s. It stems from Smyrni.

Rebetika are the eccentric songs that flourished in Greece especially at the time of the Greek civil war and were sang by all the social classes. They are full of grief, passion, romance and bitterness. They are melancholic songs telling the misfortunes of the simple men. After 1950 rebetika songs became very popular and started to fall in quality. Rebetika are the songs of the Greek underworld the so called rebetes. Rebetes were the eccentric people who lived outside the social order and demonstrated it. They were first appeared after the Greek revolution of 1821. They didn’t get married, didn’t hold by hand the girlfriend, didn’t wear a tie, walked in a certain way, hated the polish, despised work, never use umbrella, smoked hashish, helped the weak, considered prison a sign of bravery etc. They spoke a slag reach in words, expressions and gestures like the Mediterraneans do.

All the rebetika songs are being danced. Almost half of them are zeibekika and the others are hasapika . Zeibekiko is a personal dance. Only one man can dance it. If another gets up, is a cause of conflict and fight with knives. Women could not dance zeibekiko, (except of prostitutes). The dancer of zeibekiko dances looking to the earth. His face is smileless almost sinister. Hasapika were danced by two or three rebetes. Women could dance too. These two dances came to Greece from Turkey.

Rebetika were born in prison or in hookah houses. There, the rebetes were singing with a slow hoarsely voice, one after the other. Every singer added a distich that could often have no connection to the previous. There was no refrain. A rebetes accompanied the singing with a bouzouki. After 1955 when started in Greece the massive production of long play records, the rebetika had vanished. The production of the rebetika songs is done without the underworld.

Some of the main rebetiko singers and creators include Panagiotis Tountas , Vaggelis Papazoglou , Giannis Eitziridis and Manolis Khrisafakis . Some of the later creators were Markos Vamvakaris , Kostas Skarvelis , Giannis Papaioannou and Vassilis Tsitsanis. A famous Rebetiko song is Misirlou, i.e. 'the Egyptian girl'.

External links

• http://www.btinternet.com/~christopher.blackmore/rebetiko/rebetiko.html
• http://www.rebetiko.gr
• http://www.angelfire.com/folk/rempetiko/