{"id":12626,"date":"2017-08-16T20:31:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T20:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/08\/16\/a-greek-summer-hit-fills-a-generation-with-hope\/"},"modified":"2017-08-16T20:31:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T20:31:00","slug":"a-greek-summer-hit-fills-a-generation-with-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/a-greek-summer-hit-fills-a-generation-with-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"A Greek Summer Hit Fills A Generation With Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Joanna Kakissis<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n
Enlarge this image<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

\n Marina Satti and dancers rehearsing for the music video to “Mantissa,” a “love song to yourself” that has become an anthem for young Greeks facing unemployment due to the debt crisis.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n

<\/b>hide caption<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/b><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Until last year, few Greeks had heard of Marina Satti.<\/p>\n

The architecture student-turned-classically-trained singer had performed in musicals and ancient Greek plays, but her music career was largely under the radar. She played what she calls “blender” music \u2014 a combination of jazz, funk and rock \u2014 with musician friends at home.<\/p>\n

“I grew up influenced by Bj\u00f6rk<\/a> and Moderat and the Berlin electronic scene,” Satti says. “And then, while I was studying at the Berklee College of Music, I looked to my roots.”<\/p>\n

Satti’s father, a doctor, is from Sudan. Her mother, a chemical engineer, is from the Greek island of Crete. So she grew up biracial in a largely homogeneous Greece.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“I was afraid that I would stick out, ’cause I’m a little darker in the skin,” she says. “And sometimes, I remember myself being shy, and I remember I didn’t want my dad to come and pick me up from the school.”<\/p>\n

At Berklee, she immersed herself in traditional Arabic and Greek music and realized the treasure of her heritage.<\/p>\n

“What I loved about the States was that there, you can co-exist with something, someone, who is different than you,” Satti says. “It’s a state of mind I got into there that I carried back with me to Greece.”<\/p>\n

When she returned home to Athens, she incorporated Greek and Arabic folk music into her jam sessions with friends.<\/p>\n

Then, one night last year, after a pasta dinner at her apartment, they recorded a cover of “Koupes,” an old Greek rembetiko <\/a>song, and uploaded it to YouTube<\/a>. It went viral.<\/p>\n