Nikos Vertis

Nikos Vertis was born Nikolaos Arvanitidis on 21 August 1976 in Gorinchem, a Dutch town where his father had settled as a migrant worker; the family has roots in Galipsos, near Kavala. Vertis is a stage name. When he was about six or seven the family returned to Thessaloniki, and the boy began bouzouki lessons, at first as a chore. In a 2014 interview with the magazine People he recalled a music-school concert at the age of nine, when about a thousand listeners applauded him: that, he said, was when he caught the bug for music.

As a young teenager in Thessaloniki he worked at a petrol station. At around fifteen he moved back to the Netherlands with his family, played with his brother in Greek restaurants and enrolled at a school of construction, which he left in its second year to do military service in Greece. In a 2020 television interview he dated his return with his bouzouki to 1998.

He then sang in clubs in Thessaloniki and across Macedonia. In 2002 his appearances at the Thessaloniki club Rodon drew large crowds and opened the way to Athens. His first album, Πολύ απότομα βραδιάζει (Night Falls Too Suddenly), came out in 2003, and the Arion Music Awards named him best new artist of that year.

Vertis sings laïko in its modern form: emotional ballads and dance rhythms rooted in the bouzouki-led popular tradition, arranged with contemporary studio production. Most of his songs come from other composers and lyricists, although in 2020 he said he keeps many songs of his own “in the drawer”. Albums such as Πώς περνώ τα βράδια μόνος (How I Spend the Evenings Alone, 2005) and Μόνο για σένα (Only for You, 2007) established him on Greek radio; the 2005 single Πες το μου ξανά (Tell Me Again) went platinum, and Μόνο για σένα was certified double platinum.

His best-known later song, Θέλω να με νιώσεις (I Want You to Feel Me), with music by Dimitris Dekos and lyrics by Rena Kamari, became one of the most-viewed Greek music videos on YouTube after its 2014 release; Greek City Times reported more than 150 million views in 2019. The live set Live Tour – 10 Χρόνια (Ten Years, 2014) marked a decade of recording. His music also travels: Israeli singers have recorded Hebrew versions of his songs, he has shared stages with Sarit Hadad, Eyal Golan and Idan Raichel, and in 2020 he released a French-Greek duet with Amir. In 2025 Μου έλειψες πολύ (I Missed You So Much) became his first full album in eight years.

For many listeners Vertis stands for the sound of a Greek night out at the bouzoukia, the music halls where audiences sing along and dance, and his summer tours carry that repertoire to towns across Greece. For a learner, his recordings open a route into everyday emotional Greek. Try this: listen to the opening of Τι να πω (What Can I Say) on the 2025 album Μου έλειψες πολύ, then to the Unplugged Version released as a single in December 2025. Write three Greek sentences comparing voice, mood and instruments, using ενώ (whereas) and αντίθετα (by contrast), for example: Στη μία εκδοχή η φωνή ακούγεται πιο ήρεμη, ενώ στην άλλη… (In one version the voice sounds calmer, whereas in the other…). These are your own observations, not the song’s lyrics.

• His birth surname is Arvanitidis; Vertis is a stage name.
• As a boy he disliked bouzouki lessons and treated them as a chore.
• Before music took over he was drawn to drawing and building and studied construction in the Netherlands.
• One of his live albums was recorded at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv.