This book takes an interdisciplinary anthropological approach to Greek popular culture, laïkò and trap nightlife worlds of young people in contemporary Greece. Ιt includes in-depth ethnographic analysis of the performativities of young clubbers in the night club called ellinàdiko. It entails analysis of public discourse and social representations of laïkò and trap music and culture as well as analysis of the lyrical and audiovisual content associated with the production of laïkò and trap music played by DJs in ellinàdiko clubs and performed dance-wise, co-sensorially and kinesthetically. It negotiates the concept of local Greek “popular” (laïkò) as a multiversal, indigenous, embodied category, which produces specific agencies and representations, but also follows unexpected paths. Aesthetics and embodiments of laïkò and trap subjectivities in contemporary Greece are analyzed historically, diachronically, synchronically and intergenerationally. Through the ethnographic navigation inside these nightclubs, the musical and dance subjectivities, subjectivations and positionalities are also demonstrated, as well as the interpenetrating worlds and paths of laïkò and trap. Paths, where popular music and commercial rap music intersect to sometimes produce interrelated figurations, flows of meanings and articulations, and sometimes denote separations and delimited cultural universes. Finally, this book places particular emphasis on gendered discourse and gendered performativity in nightlife entertainment, as well as on the bodily, affectual, sensory, consumerist, playful and emotional ways in which these are expressed.

Natalia Koutsougera is a social anthropologist who works at the intersection of the anthropology of youth cultures, the anthropology of entertainment, the anthropology of music and dance, popular culture and gender, visual anthropology and hip-hop studies. She uses interdisciplinary approaches and multimodal methodologies.  She has directed and produced five ethnographic documentaries: “Born to Break” (2011), “The Girls Are Here” (2015), “An Element of Hope” (2025), “Girls Wanna Just Dance” (2026), “Because the Night” (2026) on the topics of hip-hop, urban dance styles, spiritualities in hip-hop, hip-hop femininities, street cultures and gender, night clubbing.