From the 1950s in Smyrna and Istanbul and working class/poor Athens, Piraeus, and Thessaloniki, to it's 1922 spread on the Greek mainland, to its height between WWI and WWII...
"Explore Rembetika music at National Geographic World Music. Discover key Rembetika artists and albums at the online home of world music. ... Rembetika is Greece's urban music par excellence. ... The roots of rembetika come from Asia Minor cities like Smyrna (Izmir) and Constantinople ..."
"Old Country" music; music with origins in the Ottoman Empire, once fabled as the borderlands of the East and the West. In a true collage of Carpathian, Jewish, Rumanian and Ottoman styles, typical suites contain dances from Moldavia and Bessarabia; Jewis
Rembetika music is the music of the Greek Underground. It originated in the hashish dens of Pireaus and Thessaloniki around the turn of the 20th century and was influenced by oriental elements that came with the forced immigration of 2 million Greek refug