The music called rebetiko is the Greek blues, born in the same era as the great Mississippi players and arising from similarly impoverished, underclass environs. Çiğdem Aslan breathes new life into the old songs with her young, London-based band. A Turkish Kurd who grew up in Greek and Armenian neighborhoods, Aslan understands the pan-ethnic undercurrents that fed this music; the words may have been in Greek but the melodies belonged to no borders. Singing with ecstatic passion, Aslan delivers century-old yet timeless songs of escaping life’s crushing burdens through marijuana, erotic encounters and freewheeling nights on the town.
