In the following pages, I want to compare some of the ways people in Greece and Turkey today understand and use the label “rebetiko,” which denotes a type of Greek popular or “urban folk” song recorded mainly during the first half of the twentieth century. While in Greece the music that is now commonly called rebetiko has always delighted numerous fans, it has over the past two decades also gained in popularity on the opposite side of the Aegean Sea. Turkish listeners have, however, not only adopted the Greek notion of rebetiko—i.e., a specific internal representation of the attributes shared by a complex of songs—but they have also adapted it to their own cultural environment. The aim of my essay is to show that an investigation into this matter can contribute to a revision of current views on rebetiko, which thus far has been examined primarily in the light of theories deriving from Greek intellectual debates (…)
Author: DANIEL KOGLIN
marginality-a key concept to understanding the resurgence of rebetiko
