, Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

, Bosnia, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 and Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 and with expatriates and emigrants originally from these regions. Related genres are Bulgarian chalga

Chalga

Chalga is a Bulgarian music genre. It is a blend of Arabic, Balkan, Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish influences, as well as motives from flamenco, filmi and klezmer music...

(manele brought by Romanian visitors to Bulgaria is referred to as "Romanian chalga"), Greek modern laïko

Laïko

Laïkó ), is a Greek music genre. Also called folk song or urban folk music , in its plural form is a Greek music genre which has taken many forms over the years...

and, to a lesser extent, Serbian turbo-folk

Turbo-folk

Turbo-folk is a popular musical sub-genre that originated in Serbia, the Balkans. Having mainstream popularity in Serbia, although closely associated with Serbian performers, its sound is as popular in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro...

, all being a mixture of local folk, Turkish and Romani influences over a pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 tune.
Early references to the terms manea and manele appear in Romanian texts from the late 18th and early 19th century, during the period of Turkish suzerainty

Suzerainty

Suzerainty occurs where a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary vassal state some limited domestic autonomy. The dominant entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is called a...

 over the Romanian principalities, as a genre of dance music brought by Phanariotes

Phanariotes

Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...

 from Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

.