LARNACA, Cyprus — Lyrical duelists in Cyprus spit rhymes in head-to-head contests, preserving alive a convention generally known as “tsiattista” that emerged centuries earlier than the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Drake.
Konstantinos Christou Grilias and Adamos Peratikos are amongst a brand new group of poets on this Mediterranean nation who battle it out stay on stage to the rhythms of the lute and fiddle. The battles are fierce, however you will not discover any Kendrick-Drake type beef. Tsiattista made UNESCO’s record of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011.
The similarities with American hip-hop diss songs and battle rap are many: two duelists utilizing their wits and turns of phrase to boast how superior they’re, giving opponents a education in an onslaught of lyrical beatdowns. It is full with assertive gestures and the hands-behind-the-back endurance of the poet ready to pounce.
“Even in the event you’d been a paramedic, I’d ship you to hospital with a coronary heart assault,” Peratikos informed one adversary — a line with extra snap within the Cypriot Greek dialect, whose syntax is akin to historical Greek. Grilias dissed his opponent as a light-weight and a laughingstock.
The viewers of lots of alongside a seaside promenade murmured in approval.
Tsiattista battles which have been round since no less than the tip of the nineteenth century, are present process a little bit of a revival, due to performers like Grilias and Peratikos.
“We urge different children who prefer it to return alongside to safeguard this establishment,” stated Peratikos, 41. “The purpose isn’t about awards, the purpose is to maintain custom alive.”
The 44-year-old Grilias stated he’s by no means actually delved into the world of Kendrick Lamar or Jay-Z.
“Truthfully, I’ve by no means listened to rappers. They informed me that they battle in their very own language, in their very own means,” Grilias stated as he ready for a tsiattista duel on the peak of a pageant for the Orthodox Christian Pentecost.
“Rappers don’t know the place Cyprus is,” he added.
The brand new group of performers, generally known as tsiattistaes, began to interchange the older era about 15 years in the past on the premier competitors in Larnaca through the annual Pentecost pageant generally known as Kataklysmos, stated ethnomusicologist Nicoletta Demetriou, who’s director of the island nation’s Music Archive.
The brand new era contains ladies, although few take part due to lingering social exclusion, Demetriou stated.
The present tsiattista format of a two-verse rhyme with a complete of 15 syllables was developed within the late 18th to early nineteenth century, evolving from the introduction of the rhyming verse to the Greek-speaking world within the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Demetriou stated. It attracts on a convention of poets matching wits from the instances of Pericles in historical Greece.
The construction and musical accompaniment are easy, in order that the rhymes are clear and comprehensible for each the viewers and the adversary.
Contests can tackle a spread of themes, however the underlying premise is to find out who’s one of the best on the diss.
“It’s normally a battle, which means ’I’d clobber you, kill you, bury you,” Grilias stated. “However I consider the general public likes extra a little bit of humor, too.”
For contestants, it is about who reveals up prepared, can keep cool and make the fewest errors in entrance of a crowd.
“Reality is, you’re harassed, you’re beneath stress,” Grilias stated, and “the one that can finest deal with this has the benefit.”
One helpful technique is guessing easy methods to get into your opponent’s mind-set, predicting potential responses to your traces, Peratikos stated.
He dismissed AI know-how as incapable of arising with efficient rhymes within the Cypriot Greek dialect.
“There are phrases that we’ve heard however we don’t even know, so there’s no means synthetic intelligence does,” Peratikos stated.
On the finish of an extended night time of battling, Grilias and Peratikos completed fourth and fifth, respectively. A judging panel composed of women and men decided the winners. The 2 contestants took their locations in stride.
“We’re all mates, that’s what’s essential,” Grilias stated.