As Turkey's most cosmopolitan city Istanbul has long been an ever-changing ever-expanding juncture for different music cultures. But among these rebetiko constitutes a unique music scene offering its adherents a substantial multicultural yet tradition-driven and somewhat "alternative" experience. This ethnographic study of Istanbul's rebetiko scene offers a testimony of the city's re-emerging rebetiko music culture and examines the phenomenon from both anthropological and sociological viewpoints. It addresses the questions of rebetiko's end-of-the-millennium revival in Istanbul after several decades of relative silence and of the motivations and artistic attitudes of rebetiko musicians as well as an exploration of the "types" of rebetiko listeners. What are some of their prominent socio-musical behaviors? In this work the author invites you on a journey of exploration through different music venues on both sides of the Bosphorus and seeks to answer these questions and others in an attempt to discover the contemporary meanings and representations of rebetiko music in Istanbul.