Moreover, Roman rap duo Flaminio Maphia paid tribute to the song in ’04. As is to be expected, the nascent domestic hip-hop scene in the mid-’80s had its own contemporary influences, still “Ma Quale Idea” is listed several times in sampling databases, including in connection to two mid-’90s European hip-hop tracks. The purported number of 12 million copies sold worldwide is very hard to believe, even considering the artist also recorded French and Spanish versions (and the Latin American market is always underestimated). The granddaddy of all Italian rap tracks. But even though we tread a gray area as soon as we try to regulate what rap is, we should be able to detect the influences we are looking for when rhythm takes precedence over melody and cadence over conversation. In Italy people cite certain songs by the likes of Adriano Celentano, Lucio Dalla, Rino Gaetano, Ornella Vanoni or Marina Bellini for the occasion. I guess you can always find some proto-rap from the ’70s on backwards. Even the irony of names like Rap Factory or New York Rappers seems to have been lost on the participants. Rap strictly plays a supporting role in that setting. Despite setting itself up for conflicts in terms of images, Italo Disco is refreshingly anonymous and even though it can be highly exploitative and derivative, it can also get to the heart of the matter that is dance music. ![]() So today’s list of historic non-hip-hop tunes with rap lacks the radio and crossover hits that France or the United Kingdom had. The genre is so consistently bizarre that greater success was simply out of the question, even though Italo produced some truly great pop tunes. (We found roughly 100 tunes with sometimes-more-sometimes-less – mostly short – rap performances, probably only the tip of the iceberg.) But not everything with a rap on it qualifies also as Italo Disco. Either way the bulk of the rap parts in music from ’80s Italy can be attributed to Italo Disco. Since the combination of rapping and singing didn’t become the norm for dance music until 10-20 years later, you could say the Italians were on to something. For that reason rap took root in Italo Disco. Rap seems to have been used almost subconsciously by Italo Disco producers, as something that was supposed to be on contemporary dance records. Why does this matter here? Rapping got caught up in Italo Disco, simple as that. An underground music industry churned out tracks that were not completely unambitious (the faces of Italo Disco – where available – were often models while session musicians performed the vocals) but lacked any reasonable business plan. It encompasses ‘serious’ pioneering (following in the footsteps of Giorgio Moroder) sophisticated electronic dance music that contributed to the evolution of the genre (particularly Chicago house) as well as a strange parallel pop music universe where familiar things are arranged and combined in the oddest ways. Given a bad name twice over, Italo Disco has assumed its place in pop music history, to some degree defining the first half of the ’80s for mainland Europeans. It typically describes producer-driven dance music that makes excessive use of synthesizer keyboards, is powered by drum machine percussion and known for its peculiar interpretations of pop song conventions. The term was never as current in the music’s place of origin as it was outside of Italy. A branding actually devised by German distributor ZYX Records in ’83 for marketing purposes, Italo Disco is not the same as Italian disco music from the ’70s, neither does it have to be made in Italy or in the 1980s. ![]() An avid adopter of American music since his beginnings as a recording artist in the late ’50s, Celentano, a great communicator, intended the imaginary language as a statement on our inability to communicate, but clearly “Prisencolinensinainciusol” – sometimes among the rap-before-rap-existed tunes people like to pull out of the hat – and its meaningless vocals still speak volumes of the (physical and cultural) American presence in Italy.Įnter Italo Disco. ![]() ![]() Then in 1972 jack-of-all-trades Adriano Celentano unveiled the nonsensical “Prisencolinensinainciusol”, in which he assumes a mock American English. Never mind that the tune was itself indebted to one of the first styles of American popular music – swing – to be successfully exported (and quickly imitated), “Tu Vuò Fà L’Americano” (‘You’re a Wannabe American’) is a vivid caricature not just of post-war Italy but many other places where American popular culture proliferated at one point or another. In 1956 Neapolitan singer Renato Carosone recorded the satirical song “Tu Vuò Fà L’Americano”, which poked fun at locals who mimic the American lifestyle. Let us begin with two songs that are not part of our presentation but are fit to set the stage.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |