Rebetiko is a pure folk music movement that started in Greece at the beginning of the 20th century and expressed the joys and sorrows of the less privileged, forming a link between the local inhabitants and the refugees from Asia Minor, who flooded the urban centers after their persecution in 1922.

As a musical idiom, it creatively elaborates on the musical heritage of the Eastern Mediterranean, with its own instruments and musical scales, bridging in a way the music of the East with that of the West.

It produced genius composers, singers and instrumentalists, who created a vast original repertoire of incredible diversity and immediacy, which accompanied the lives of the simple people, to whom it was addressed.

In the decades that have passed since then, it has flourished and declined, its themes diversified, adapting to the issues of Greek society, in order to gradually evolve or even merge into what we call greek popular music.

From 1972 onwards, interest in rebetiko awakened again and in the early 1980s it was played live in the corresponding venues, while the gramophone discography was digitalized and began to be released on CD, while the repertoire was recorded, taught, the old techniques were studied, etc.

Since 2017 it has been a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity Monument