Affinity and differences between Italian rappers and Berlusca

There is a great misunderstanding in the story of the Italian rap game and it concerns the fascination for Silvio Berlusconi, seen as a “gangsta rapper” – Cole sings it in Delorean by Noyz Narcos – or as the made in Italy incarnation of the American swag model: “Life is only sluts and millions, says Ice Cube and Berlusconi too” is a rhyme by Guè ne The Golden boy.

The truth is that Silvio B. has never been taken seriously in Italian hip hop, every reference to him is ironic, hyperbolic, cartoonish. He is a Scrooge McDuck inside a night club, a Gino Bramieri with a Tupac bandana, a Latin catchphrase to be sampled in the pieces, nothing more. Too badly dressed, with a loser’s turtleneck or a cumenda’s sweater over his shoulders, to be an icon of coolness. Too bauscia, with that affected use of the Italian language, from teleshopping, to have the right flow. Too many lawyers and too many media in service for his troubles with justice to give him the necessary street credibility.

At most he could elicit a smile for those arch Italian and démodé vices of his – the pussy, the bravado, the peasant luxury model Costa Smeralda – but more than anything else it is the emoticon with the smiley laughing to tears that best represents the sentiment of the first generation of successful Italian rappers towards him: Club Dogo, Marracash, Salmo and Fedez have grown up inside the Berluscosphere like so many Gen X and Gen Y, but they had developed antibodies, some by running into social centers (Fedez), some by frequenting “bourgeois left” realities such as classical high schools in Milan (Guè), some by listening to punk (Salmo). Certainly they didn’t make – they would make – a political issue of their music, not out of ignorance, simply to distance themselves from that old school of militant rap (Onda Rossa Posse, Colle Der Fomento, Isola Posse All Star, up to Sangue Misto) that had preceded them. They weren’t against Berlusconi, but neither were they for the Democratic Party – zero in terms of hip hop style and attitude – but we couldn’t even define them as apolitical: they were certainly non-partisan, disenchanted and a bit cynical.

And the new rappers, the young late millennials or Gen Z, what relationship did they have with the Berluscosphere? Apart from Baby Gang, more or less aware spokesperson for the “presumed” guarantee Innocent (the title of his latest album) from the world of Italian prisons, which last September even played an electoral endorsement by inviting his fans to vote Forza Italia, there is no trace of Silvio B. in the trap and drill rhymes of the last five years. However, this does not mean that they have not been infected by Berlusconi in some way. And it happened in an indirect but very powerful way, through the same tool that Silvio had used to catechize millions of Italians to his beliefs already at the time of the “descent into the field”: television.

So it happens that today the rap game looks like a big talk on Rete 4, cameras on for a perpetual verbal brawl, the reasons for the dispute are not clear, but it is not necessary, it only matters who screams the loudest, it makes no difference if it is an ex pissed citizen income earner, a no vax obsessed with chemtrails or a provincial driller who flexes trivia. The DJ Mario Giordano or the producer Nicola Porro, well-known Mediaset presenters, are behind the dishes and haranguing the crowd, the rappers/politicians/opinionists warm up their voices for their freestyles, the battle is in prime time, on Spotify, on social networks, everywhere, except in the streets and among the people of whom both the musical lyrics and the television broadcasts in question speak.

There is a piece of an episode of Out of the core, hardcore talk by Rete 4, in which the presenter Giordano monologues the violence of the trap texts, becoming indignant: “Bang bang bang / images of guns, rifles / drug dealing filmed live / pill scimitars / millions of views on the internet / bang bang bang / other than integration / behind the welcome there is this”. Not a bad rap piece, right? Here is the true legacy of Berlusconi: the run-up to 200 per hour against the flow without a belt towards the audience, whoever has the highest share wins, the most views on YouTube, who cares if there is no content, or if the content sucks, the ‘important is to enter the standings.