In this week's edition of World Music Matters, Kurdish singer Cigdem Aslan talks about singing rebetiko – a form of Greek blues that grew out of the population exchanges in 1923 following the Greco-Turkish war. More than a million Greek Anatolians were forced to return to Greece, and around 500,000 ethnic Turks resettled from Greece to the new Turkish Republic. Lost in their new countries, they found solace in song. Initially banned by both Greece and Turkey, Aslan talks about helping revive this music and what it means to be a Mortissa…the title of her new solo album.
Cigdem Aslan's official website
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