Kostas Hatzis is a Greek singer-songwriter and musician of Romani origin.
Kostas Hatzis was born in Livadeia, a city in central Greece to a Romani family. Considered a leading composer and a pioneer in the Greek social song, he has popularised the "voice-guitar" style, voicing ballads with social messages.
His grandfather was a popular clarinetist and dulcimer player. Hatzis quickly followed in his grandfather's footsteps. When he was sixteen years old, his father took him to play at weddings, christenings and other events where folk music was requested. After a five-year musical tour of the Greek countryside, he moved to Athens in 1957, began recording in 1961, and became popular in the mid-1960s with the Greek New Wave movement in music.
Hatzis's talent was discovered by the day's great composers like Mikis Theodorakis, Manos Hadjidakis, Mimis Plessas, Stavros Xarchakos, and Yannis Markopoulos, with whom he since has collaborated, performing their songs, incorporating his personal style and particular sensibility to them.
At the end of the 1960s, Hatzis toured the United States to perform concerts for expatriate Greeks.