Greece Culture: Music and Dance: Rembetika (Rebetika)

There are various definitions of what constitutes this genre of music which has become immensely popular since its revival during the last three decades. The fine book by Australian Gail Holst, written in the 1970s, entitled 'The Road to Rembetika' is an excellent introduction to this subject. As detailed above (in the section about the music of Asia Minor), it was noted that many musicians these days refer to the music associated with the city of Smyrni (Smyrna) brought to Greece from there in the 1920s with the 'katastrofi', as rembetika rather than simply 'Smyrneika'.

It is probably more accurate, however, to acknowledge that there was both overlapping of the Asia Minor music in the beginning (during the 1920s at least) with the music that evolved into the bouzouki centered music usually called rembetika, and also a major influence upon the latter in terms of musical dance rhythms brought from Asia Minor, notably the zeibekikos, hasapikos and the tsifteteli (the first and last of these three rhythms played by Greeks and Turks in Asia Minor, as well as by some Armenian and Gypsy musicians). The subculture that evolved in the hash dens of Piraeus, Athens and Thessaloniki, where the classic rembetika of the 1930s evolved, was an underworld culture spawned by the poverty and hardship of the transplantation of 1.5 (approximately) Greeks into shanty towns in a strange and often hostile territory, many refugees going from riches to rags overnight, losing everything that they had, including their professions.

It is not surprising, therefore, that many turned to drugs, gambling, smuggling, etc. Early rembetika songs mostly have to do with drugs (from hashish to heroin), jail, love and betrayal, death, the police, etc. The hashish songs are known as hasiklidika, and express the widely acknowledged connection between the hashish high and musical inspiration. It should be noted here that hashish was legal in Turkey and was only outlawed in Greece around the same time that marijuana (hashish being a concentrate of marijuana) was outlawed in the United States.

Many suspect major industries (especially the tobacco and wine industries, but also the paper and textile industries) as having pressured for its prohibition. As in present times, it was regarded by many as in the same category as the heavy narcotic, heroin, especially because some rebetes (those who played rembetika) were junkies. In any case, these common themes in rembetika songs have largely engendered the comparison with the 'blues', though the music itself is utterly different. The dance rhythms found most commonly in rembetika were the Hasapikos, Zey bekikos (zeibekikos) and (less than the first two), the Tsifteteli and the Karsilamas.