Thank you for all your great and knowledgeable thoughts on this subject, Trdat. It's nice to see some other folks here who are also interested in these genres.
So yes... "pop-folk" is definitely broader than just the music of the Balkans. And I also listen to similar-sounding music by artists from a number of other parts of the surrounding region, including Anatolia, the Caucasus, Central Asia (aka "the stans"), and the Middle East. As I mentioned before, there are a number of artists I like in similar genres from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, and also other parts of West/Central Asia. So I'm not sure really the best way to handle this.
My original conception for this thread was something similar to what I began
here, which covered just the Balkans. But we could very easily take this in a different direction. And broaden the topic out to include some of the other areas above.
I'm not sure exactly how you describe the area that includes all of these regions along and around the boarders of Southeastern Europe and Asia though. But that's where this type of music generally seems to proliferate, and be located. Any suggestions on how to handle this are welcome. And I'd be curious to hear what you and others think would be best along these lines.