Singing the nation: Contemporary Greek rebetiko performance as carnivalesque

Significant ethnomusicological research examines the use of traditional song to embody, perform and promote nationalist sentiment in the contemporary globalizing world. Traditional song as a mechanism for national critique has received less scholarly attention. This is a particularly prominent phenomenon within the contemporary European Union, where the utopian ideal of an increasingly borderless and multicultural region conflicts with conventional structures and ideologies of national belonging. This article examines the popular Rebetiki Istoria club in Athens, Greece, as carnivalesque resistance to state-sanctioned Europeanization projects. Engaging the four categories of a ‘carnivalistic sense of the world’, as outlined by Mikhail Bakhtin, this study examines this rebetiko culture as structurally coherent resistance to crypto-colonialist attitudes towards Greece. Emphasizing the role of heteroglossic dialogue in shaping carnivalesque music culture, the article examines how voice and singing in the music culture of this particular club level social hierarchies, and challenge dominant ideologies of national identity. Primary consideration is given to vocal style in the framing of rebetika as carnivalesque, suggesting that a particular politics of voice within the club frames rebetika as strategic commentary on narratives of self and other. In this study, the voice is understood as phonosonic nexus – both an embodied physical presence and a metaphor for intention and authority – that shapes the interpretive frame and signals a particular metanarrative of resistance and subversion guiding the carnivalesque nature of the music culture in the club.