Live Diaries: Marina Satti // Lycabettus, Athens, Sep 2024
Live Diaries: Marina Satti // Lycabettus, Athens, Sep 2024
Something borrowed, something blue; “Ti Se Mellei Esena” and “Sexo y alcohol” and the goat emoji on “P.O.P.”’s cover.
On the first day of summer last year, I found myself at one of these modern cabaret clubs on the older side of town. It was a word of mouth thing — existing on the outskirts of dancer circles will easily get you familiar with what is happening where, based on who’s working with who at a time which, besides the social aspect, grants perks of endless night-out options. As it is said, in Athens, there is always something to see.
I decided to take advantage of the two-show deal, the post-applause break, after the primary reason for my being there had fulfilled its purpose, finding me already seated for the next act. I wouldn’t have expected this in my wildest dreams; The drag performance was built around obscure, queered-up lore about ethnic subgroups of Greece’s Thessaly valley, a region known for its loaded cultural history, greatly informative to the collective Greek identity. Also my place of birth, steeped in tradition and myth for the ages. Part of the latter, of course: witches. That’s where the sequence saw the (notably Gen Z) performer shedding layers and layers of their narration-appropriate, traditional, regional costume to unveil a sequined minidress, fit for a uniquely sultry rendition of “O Ilios Vasilevi” that featured improvised choreo of equal amounts contemporary dance and tsifteteli.
I once saw this commented under the Greek Islands (meaning, well, Naxos) installment of Parts Unknown, the Anthony Bourdain culinary travel series binging episodes of which has become my latest emotional support pastime: there is something about this land — perhaps owed to eons of ancient history, religious conversions, and a tumultuous past’s remnants seeping into near-every aspect of modern life — that feels mystical… More than that, blood-marred, fire-lit; a story whispered behind curtains with the odd gut-wrenching cry. Ages-old folk songs about sunsets and moons that dance in circles around love gardens punctuated by heavy rhythm and undertones of pain and secrecy lend themselves to social gatherings and parties as well as to the sinister allure of witch tales. In them, madness and affection, hatred and happiness, death and romance meet along the same lines. What an affront, to recognize carnality in anguish! What an affront, to do it as a woman.
Marina Satti doesn’t look afraid of the stake at this stage. Over just the last few months, the 37-year-old singer of half-Cretan, half-Sudanese descent whose slowburn career first picked up around 2017 has not only made her humble mark on the European music landscape, but been propelled into domestic pop stardom in full force. A mere skim through a search of her name on Greek X (Twitter) will clearly tell you the latter hasn’t come bearing only gifts. Common knowledge, that this is a tough country to be a woman in and that existing in the spotlight is bound to expose one to scrutiny beyond imagination whether it comes from internet trolls, morning gossip TV, or tabloids. Satti, besides her behavioral micro-transgressions, eccentric fashion sense, and mature age which, as per popular opinion, should be reason enough to warrant vitriol for both of the first points, has another wrath to face as an artist going global with traditional Greek music foundations; one rooted in a “sacred” Greek conscience which has upheld elderly values as the national core identity to this day and which rejects outside influence as much as it fears its idea of defamation.
It’s been a hectic year and the entry-level pop icon knows she’s in the eye of the storm. Welcoming September at her sold out Amphitheater of Lycabettus concert (a location right on top of a hill at the heart of Athens which overlooks the city, only accessible via a 15-minute trail hike after a certain time of the evening), Satti saves the confession for the thanks section: “If it weren’t for you…” she addresses the heaps of screaming fans, hinting at not being sure she’d have coped at all, “let alone released songs.” Because, even amidst the turmoil, release songs she did. The mention refers to her latest project, dropped right on the heels of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 grand final which saw her place 11th with the glaringly Balkan-sounding opener and closer of the night, “ZARI;” a bold venture into bonafide, what-we-call “global pop” that held solid resemblance to summer 2023 predecessor “TUCUTUM.” That’s opener and standout track 2, then, of May’s P.O.P.: a seven-piece containing Satti’s most self-referential work to date, any other title for which would’ve signaled a missed opportunity.
Mutually an on-the-nose announcement of the hat Satti is choosing to wear for this portion of her career and an allusion to the Greek acronym for PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), P.O.P. makes its dual statement without so much as a stutter. The drill may sound familiar; May 2022’s YENNA, Satti’s debut album constructed around the idea of creation as a sort of birth, first earned the songstress comparisons to Rosalía and her El Mal Querer (2018) thanks to its studious lens and repurposing of traditional music motifs with a strong regional character into modern productions. As artists of academic musical backgrounds, Rosalía and Satti paid their dues early on, becoming associated with novel takes on ethnic sounds at the start of their careers. Naturally, the next step for both would be to climb on a Yamaha and burn the hell out of that rubber into whole other realms. The deafening engine growl appears in the lead-up to the concert’s centerpiece (after a balanced parade of lively high-streamers, sleeper hits, and traditional covers from Crete to Thrace to Asia Minor) which also sees Satti, post-outfit change, assume position on a motorcycle prop at the corner of the stage.
“MIXTAPE,” P.O.P.’s penultimate track and the weirdest thing to come out of the domestic pop scene in decades, is a 10-minute juggernaut that gets as close to the “dariacore” micro-genre as a release of its caliber is allowed to. In a fantastical twist, it’s also what a significant amount of the crowd is largely there for, buzzing to yell out all the viral catchphrases sprinkled throughout its duration which, whether tongue-in-cheek or confrontational, address some of Satti’s controversial, viral and meme-worthy moments in the public eye over the course of her ESC rollout. Braggadocious verses, silly disses, hilarious sampling, about a dozen genre switches, and cameos from renowned laïkó singers to the contemporary Greek rap scene are playfully interwoven in this experimental cut that reads like an inside joke between Satti and her fans. Among the topics touched upon; the media’s initial reaction to “ZARI,” labeled a “flop” upon demo release, Satti’s victory in “shutting them up” after its bounce with domestic popularity, as well as her unease over people’s expectations regarding her trajectory.
In parallel with “MIXTAPE”’s boisterous blend of influences, characters and moods, this era of Satti’s bursts with color, leaning into kitschy aesthetics and embracing cheerful sounds associated with dancing both in Greek tradition and outside of it. Quite the contrast from YENNA’s introverted nature and its, for the most part, subdued soundscapes which defined the musician’s first endeavor into LP creation by illustrating intimate stories in a confessional and occasionally dark tone — P.O.P. wants you to move. It’s why Satti’s backup gang spends a good 50% of the concert on stage; Besides waacking extraordinaire Eirini Damianidou’s viral routine for the Cretan sousta-indebted “LALALALA” and choreographer Majnoon of MOTOMAMI fame lending contagious energy to “STIN IYIA MAS” with a solo freestyle, the dancer quintet performs song after song alongside Satti, down to YENNA tracks modified to include choreography in their more dynamic moments. Whether simply framing the singer by posing and gesturing, or having their own minutes in the spotlight, Satti’s troupe goes full-out with attitude and spontaneity, their off-script interactions indicating a tight-knit bunch.
This witnessing of closeness, too, is something to be expected: The piece of information Satti immediately lets the crowd in on after performing her 2017 hit “Mantissa” (with a newly updated routine) around the start of the night is that everything we’re about to see is a product of “family.” Elena Leoni and Erasmia Markidi have been harmonizing with Satti since way before ESC looked like a plan. Throughout the concert, the two backing vocalists who help bring to life the traditionally inclined part of the setlist barely leave her side, joined, towards the end, by a pack of ladies dressed in white hitherto seated among the audience. Those are the Chóres, an all-women choir led and creatively directed by Satti that sprang out of her first polyphonic group founded with Leoni and Markidi, Fonés. Together, they deliver a haunting rendition of “Ah THALASSA,” a ballad tied to her father’s sudden passing in May and the odd epilogue to P.O.P., which openly displays Satti’s vocal prowess and emotional honesty as a songwriter; as if proving, amid the blissful chaos of the rest of the record (and obviously, sell-out allegations), that that gift of hers is still intact. In P.O.P., it’s the unforeseen moment where she takes off the cool, neon sunglasses and cuts the cameras to sit alone with her thoughts. At Lycabettus, it’s the one where she kneels against a veil of white — family — and bewitches a packed amphitheater.
If the egg-throwing incident at her Alexandria show just a few days prior has rendered Satti freshly charged up, it’s only through details that it’s visible. There’s amped up masculine energy in her pre-encore performance of “TUCUTUM” which borrows from trap to self-assert and put... yappers in their place. The rocked-up distortions and threatening mumbling of YENNA’s “ASE ME NA FIGO” teeter on the edge of madness as Leoni, Markidi, and Damianidou join Satti in a frenzied dance akin to a spell-casting ritual, while “KRITIKO” (a personal favorite) is explosive as ever and then some in its eerie recounting of a tale wherein a bride-to-be anticipates her own death in gruesome descriptions. There was a time I was lucky to witness firsthand, a couple of years ago, when Satti wrapped her live gigs by responding to audience chants asking for encores on encores with “I wish I had more songs to play for you.” The circumstances are staggering to compare: P.O.P. has redefined what a Marina Satti show means by a mile, replacing demure white dresses with denim hotpants and leather, and upping the scale with graphics, dancers, and a setlist that makes the most of the two-hour mark. A tiny thread, though, is drawn by 2021’s “PONOS KRIFOS” which features the line “Everything changes in an instant” — as Satti silently mouths the repeated whisper of “Darling, everything changes,” she seems to mean the words more than ever.
“Everything that is mine, I’ve given you,” reads the caption to her Instagram post following the Lycabettus show, a sentiment echoed from the concert’s epilogue where Satti is fresh from the happy-go-lucky “LALALALA,” the red-blooded “TUCUTUM,” and a cover medley spanning Greek tradition, Arabic hip-hop, and… Björk (the Omar Souleyman remix of “Crystalline” to be exact). Concluding just before midnight, the sequence has walked one through different corners of the earth, elicited tears of bittersweetness and exclamations of both emotional empathy and fannish sleaze. It is an unsettling realization, perhaps, but a realization nonetheless, how intensely Greek culture oscillates between collective pain and self-righteousness. It’s still-healing wounds and labyrinthian depths of pride, and when not mythologized, it’s also the tasteless bits that seem to mock the dark weight at its heart. Something about the intersection of folk and urban aesthetics seems to get right to the bug — a refusal to open the eyes to a landscape as complex as reality. Reality that’s simultaneously heavy, time-honored, romantic, frivolous, appropriative, sexy, mismatched, and compelling. This is the Greece of today, and this is Marina Satti, then; something borrowed, something blue; “Ti Se Mellei Esena” and “Sexo y alcohol” and the goat emoji on P.O.P.’s cover.
