Abstract
The chapter argues that the period of the posses was instrumental for the development of an independent hip hop scene on the marginal island of Sardinia. To this end, the chapter discusses Sa Razza’s musical production and outlines the group’s use of global hip hop culture and rap music as a means to re-invent a specifically Sardinian cultural tradition. Sa Razza used their local language to rap about social and political marginalization specific to Sardinian youth. In addition, Sa Razza connected with their region’s traditional music and culture in order to make what was devalued, and seemingly outdated, speak again in new forms capable of articulating the experiences and concerns of contemporary Sardinian youth.
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Notes
- 1.
Groups and artists who use Sardinian language or a combination of various languages include Dr Drer & CRC Posse (mainly from Cagliari, the capital city of the island), the rap group Menhir (originally from Nuoro, the main town of inland Sardinia), the rappers Balentia (named after the Sardinian word that means courage and valour, and which was often used to describe the traits of Sardinian bandits). For a discussion of language use by these and other Sardinian artists , see Lutzu 2012.
- 2.
As discussed in Chap. 4, during the mid- to late 1980s, a new wave of Jamaican immigration to New York led to increasing hybridization between reggae and rap, as exemplified by the influential Bronx artist KRS-One’s fusion of rap and reggae on the album, Criminal Minded (B-Boy Records, 1987). The formative influence of Criminal Minded and its spread of transnational “black” connective marginalities are attested to by the fact that this album directly inspired the UK’s first ragga-hip hop hybrid the very next year: Daddy Freddy and Asher D’s Ragamuffin Hip-Hop (Music of Life, 1988).
- 3.
Pili’s documentary covers the past 20 years of hip hop activity in Cagliari, featuring all of the main artists and groups involved in what he defines as “the four arts” of hip hop: breakdancing, DJ’ing, rapping/MC’ing, and graffiti writing.
- 4.
- 5.
Likewise, in his discussion of dancehall and reggae in Japan, Marvin Sterling argues that blackness in consumerist Japan is “a commodity that is largely devoid from its human referents, to be enjoyed through, for example, the playful consumption of dancehall music” (2010, p. 4).
- 6.
Sardinian tenore singers take their name from the style of their singing called the cantu a tenore. Lutzu describes this style of singing as a “polyphony of oral tradition sung by four men and typical of the central areas of the island. Usually the soloist, or one or more components of the accompanying choir, covers his ear with his hand while singing” (2012, p. 355).
- 7.
The focus on local themes and the use of a local language is not unique to Sa Razza. As hip hop scholars have demonstrated, the turn to local languages and themes is characteristic of the modes of indigenization and syncretism that exemplify the global spread of hip hop (see Bennett 2000; Pennycook 2006; Helbig 2014).
- 8.
According to Vanessa Beeley, fishing and navigation around Sardinia are suspended during military drills and naval exercises; thus NATO’s control of Sardinia extends to around 7200 square miles beyond the land boundaries (2016, n.pag.).
- 9.
Vittorio De Seta’s 1961 Neorealist film, Banditi a Orgosolo (Bandits in Orgosolo), provides a well-known example of this cultural imagining of Sardinian shepherds.
- 10.
Lutzu comments that the propensity to claim a link between local traditions and rap is not new to the Sardinian case, as it is common to places which have a strong tradition of oral poetry. According to Lutzu, journalists and scholars also “in an excessively simplistic way” connect rap with traditions such as the Griot of western Africa and the Majdoub of the Maghreb (Lutzu 2012, p. 363).
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Discography
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Scarparo, S., Stevenson, M.S. (2018). Southern Echoes of the Posses in Sardinia: Sa Razza. In: Reggae and Hip Hop in Southern Italy. Pop Music, Culture and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96505-5_6
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