Past Forward: Creative Re-inventions of Urban Popular Song in the Music of Sokratis Malamas

Abstract

This chapter explores rebetiko and laiko, “present pasts” in Hyussen’s terms, in the music of the renowned songwriter and lyricist Sokratis Malamas, one of the most popular representatives of the entechnolaiko genre in contemporary Greece. In Germany young Malamas emerges as a sort of “cosmopolitan patriot”, in Appiah’s terms, “attached to home of his or her own, with its own particularities, but taking pleasure from the presence of other, different places that are home to other, different people”. Malamas’ voice steps firmly upon the melodic line, evolving without the fluctuations and plethoric embellishments featuring contemporary laiko song “arabesk” aesthetics. Malamas returned to Germany to study electrical engineering while continuing to take classical guitar lessons, which he had already started in Thessaloniki. Papazoglou “discovered” Malamas performing his early songs in the boites of Thessaloniki. Such a melancholic resistance defines Malamas’ reluctance to enter the field of the “world music” market. © 2019 Taylor and Francis.