The controversy over Fedez saying things brings back to life, after many and many years, the mummy of politically committed singers. It is a category that, before being criticized, must be explained.
First of all: why have committed singers disappeared? How did the political commitment of Italian singers die?
The answer lies in the period when the left went crazy because in power there was a rich man surrounded by beautiful women, who showed to appreciate them. As if that weren't enough, this rich man used to have his parties / orgies in Sardinia instead of in Rome, and if you don't let the Romans wet the biscuit, they'll blame you.
In short, the left was pissed off as never before, and as usual they decided to do the usual rule "to stop Berlusconi", who otherwise would have made the rules ad personam. And so a "level playing field" law was made.
The par condicio law said that a radio or television broadcaster could not send content in favor of Berlusconi without also sending one, along the same length, in favor of Achille Occhetto, or the chronic loser on duty.
It had no effect on politics, since Berlusconi filed it in the cabinet of the laws he was fucking with, and continued as always, pissing on the head of yet another guarantor.
But the effect on the music was tremendous. At one point a group called Article 31 made a song, which went on the radio. Since it was judged to be a left-wing song, the radio, the record company was sanctioned and the song was ordered to disappear from programming for a certain time (which I don't remember at the moment).
The result was terror: it meant you couldn't plan a tour, because if the elections started in the middle you were screwed. You couldn't throw a new album on the radio because if a government fell all the work of preparing the album and launching was thrown down the toilet. Even at the local level, a regional election was enough (and that's it) and the concert of an explicitly political singer was blocked, or at least risked.
Thus, all the singers who were previously politically aligned began to change profiles: those who took care of saving flamingos, those who campaigned for the amatriciana, in short, the political alignment became very dangerous.
And the funny thing about it is that at the time, apart from Povia and Vasco Rossi, the right had practically no singers on its side. So it was a sensational own goal by the left, who still haven't understood one thing:
any worsening of the regulatory framework designed to hit the adversary inevitably backfires against those who launched it.
Thus, the law made to "limit Berlusconi" not only did not limit anyone, but closed the mouth of the committed singers. They all disappeared in that period, from Nannini to Litfiba, none remained. It was too risky for radio and record companies.
Now Fedez arrives and poof, he gets into politics. Politics in the sense that it puts its nose into the party system, rather than doing abstract politics. And the shock arrives, because the history of Par Condicio is so old that by now all the parties believed they had buried it. But there are several reasons why this could have happened:
- singers don't work for covid and need visibility.
- instagram is not a radio you can turn off.
- Fedez wasn't singing. (assuming he does it when there is music).
This allows singers not to fear the level playing field law. No radio will reject them, no government can censor instagram (except Zuckerberg), since it is not a song it becomes difficult to retaliate against the producer or distributor.
Then you will say: cheers, we are in the perfect moment. Now all the singers will be back to talking and engaging! Drug! Sex! Rock'n roll.
It won't, for several reasons. Don't be fooled.
1) The old committed singers have gone to hell.
Almost all the "idols of the left" of the period were actors. They played the part of those on the left, but in reality they were what we saw. Pro-fascist conspiracy theorists, anti-vax, racists, philolegists and in general unscrupulous paraculi: the League in power, and here the gay singer becomes a superlegist.
We could start with the names, and the list would be merciless. Take an Italian singer-songwriter committed to the left in the 80s, and watch him NOW. You can find everything from Miguel Bose 'antivax to conspiratorial Mannoia, the worst of the worst served on a steaming plate of shit. All while the world waits with bated breath for the return of the Righeira.
Over everything stands out, like cock on macaroni, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti the Altar boy.
No one, after seeing this gigantic licking metamorphosis, would ever believe in a new generation of committed singers.
2) You want to be an American.
In the 80s / early 90s the Italian record was a real genre in its own right, which today you can still find on youtube under the name of " ITALO Disco " ( https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_disco ), and therefore there was a whole production of Italian records that somehow spoke to Italians about Italian things. They weren't particularly busy, but they entered into a general expectation: that music would tell Italians about Italian things. Or at least things Italians were interested in.
Today's problem is that among trap, rap & co, musicians talk to young Italians about the (social and political) problems of Americans. Los Angeles ghettos do not exist in Italy. Cops kill people like Cucchi or Aldrovandi, not ghetto niggers.
So surely in the world of Italian rap there will have been a myriad of songs and statements from singers about Floyd's death. But rest assured that if the policemen kill an Italian, they don't care: it's not an American problem, SO IT DOESN'T EXIST.
Fedez will make a speech that the GLBTQQAIS ++ fringes will really like (please stop adding letters, you are not lazy), entering into a debate that is strong in the USA therefore on American social networks, but the Italian parties have little to do with it. to what happens in the USA. And they can do little about it.
Now comes Fedez and is with Zan law, and everything is fine, but will not talk 'not of Italian or European problems (I know, South Italy sinking in misery, Poland back to 1967, etc) because' it is not American problems are not problems of rap, and since they are not problems of rap they are not Italian problems.
Even if today's singers returned to their commitment, they would not all be for the PD against the League. It would be for Biden against Trump.
Something of which, in Italy, the right changes.
3) Ammeriga, or the liberals.
Having as a cultural center the internet and social networks, that is the RAP and the USA, no Italian musical group can be "left" in the sense that it is meant in Europe. At most they can be "liberal", which does not indicate a left-wing party, but the less extreme fringe of American society, which is entirely right-wing.
To say that Biden is on the left because he is against Trump is like saying that Galeazzo Ciano was a partisan because he went against Mussolini.
And the difference is also, yes, ideological. There is a gulf between a social democrat, or even a socialist, and a "liberal".
If I say that "100 people own 50% of the world's wealth," a liberal and a socialist will react in two extremely different ways.
- socialist: let's take all that wealth from those people, using taxes, and redistribute it in the form of welfare.
- liberal: of those 100 people, 50 must be women, 17 must be black, 11 must be lesbian / gay, and one transgender.
The difference between a liberal and a socialist, that is, is that the liberal focuses on equality but forgets about justice . It is, that is, a right with a sprinkle of equal opportunity, but not a left.
Since today's singers can only be "liberal" in the American sense of the term, they will never find a place in the tradition and thought of the European left.
4. Rap is not left wing.
We are talking about a music that, since its "gangsta" origins, does nothing but emphasize the most misogynistic characteristics of the world of American prostitution.
Let's start from a subculture where the male is a "pimp", or rather a mafia pimp, while women are "ho", that is hookers, the slaves of the sidewalk. Congratulations. He really knows about the left. And feminists are silent (too busy swallowing?)
The subsequent evolutions are not much better: from the birth of the well-known women's liberation dance called "twerking" to the blatant apology of violence and petty crime. But it wasn't the hedonistic discourse of the previous generation: we wanted fun and pleasure, and if the laws were against they would fuck it. But it was not against the law on principle.
This new pile of idiots goes against the law, and it's not even fun. Singing that the rapist is a real man, that the pimp is great if he forces his slaves into prostitution, that a shooting is fun (no one knows why), and that domestic violence is, in short, that slapping the bitch that occasionally reminds everyone who the man of the house is.
In such a tradition, proposing oneself as "left" seems to me quite, as it were, unlikely. There is no idea of emancipation, progress, equality and even equality.
These are, mainly, the reasons why I do not think it is possible, let alone "functioning" or "credible", for committed singers to return.
Of course, today Fedez can't do shows and the launch of new records becomes dangerous due to lack of tours, so he needs to make himself heard and keep his name "warm".
But beware: all this lasts as long as the covid.
As soon as the covid ends, we go back to concerts and tours, we go back to needing the radio and TV, and consequently, the same shit returns.
Make no mistake: sooner or later, a song like Bregovitch will start.
