The South | Drugs | The Mafia | Government | Immigrants | The World

A History of the Insulted World

Drugs

Like their African American counterparts, early Italian rappers decried the collusion of the state and the mafia in the immensely profitable business of international heroin and cocaine trafficking while calling for the de-criminalization of light drugs like marijuana. Since at least the 1970s, Italy has suffered a devastating epidemic of heroin which has a tremendous impact on the country's youth. According to urban planner Raymond Lorenzo, more than 30 percent of registered addicts in Naples began using drugs before the age of 15.

Songs like Il Generale's "Stupefacente" (Narcotics) and OTR's "Ragga no droga" (Reagge not drugs) are simple, straight forward denoucements of the wastefullness of heroin addiction.

Sud Sound System's "T'a sciuta bona" (It went well for you) is a graphic wakeup call in the Puglese dialect:

Ma sinti scemu pe picca nu 'nci lassi
le corna storte ca tieni a 'ncapu
comu faci cu te piace caoi te sient fiaccu
te minti a vomitare te sienti tutu scemu

You're so stupid, you almost didn't put
those crooked horns on your had [traditional insult of being cuckolded]
first you like it then it makes you sick
you start vomiting and then you become an idiot

and indictment of the powers that be:

Ma tie la sai a ci dai li sordi toi?
ma tie la sai ci mangia su de tie?
la mafia ca te suca lu sangu
la mafia ca cite ca ruba e ca cumanna
mafia business controlla la Sicilia
mafia business controlla lu Salentu
mafia business controlla l' Italia
mafia business controlla la miseria.

Do you know who you give your money to?
Do you know who thrives on your fall?
It's the mafia who sucks your blood
It's the mafia who kills, who robs, and who rules.
Mafia business rules Sicily
Mafia business rules the Salentu peninsula
Mafia business rules Italy
Mafia business rules the misery.

And check out Bisca's "Sott'o attacco dell' idioizia" ("Under Idiocy's Attack"), a brutal assault on the listener for acquiescing his/her autonomy:

Eroina, fascisti e polizia
figli della stessa mamma della tua idiozia
idiota da quando sei nato la tua vita e' pilotata
da gente di merda che ti fa' essere idiota....

Heroin, fascists, and the police
children of the same mother born from your idiocy.
Idiot, since you were born, your life has been driven
by shit heads that turn you into an idiot.

On the other hand, the use of reefer and hashish is referred by a number of rap artists from Sangue Mista and Neffa, who pepper their songs with drug-related slang and sound effects (sniff snaff), to the reagge bands Pitura Fresca and Africa Unite. The CD compilation Legalisation brings together these and other artists around the issue of doing away with the criminalization of marijuana and hashish in Italy.

One of the most popular calls for the legalization of cannabis has been Articolo 31's delightfully catchy "Maria, Maria," a love song about a girl whose full name happens to be Maria Giovanna and who doesn't get along with the border patrol and dogs. The upbeat and funny tune got so much airplay in 1995 that the Vatican publicly condemned the song.

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The South | Drugs | The Mafia | Government | Immigrants | The World

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