A Brief History of Italian Rap (written by Joe Sciorra)

Rap took root in Italy in the creative hothouses of the centri sociali or cultural centers. The centri are one of the lasting socio-cultural experiments of the politically charged 1970s. Centri members, dedicated to a radical left and often anarchist vision, consider themselves to be part of a national Movimento Antagonista, or Antagonistic Movement.

Chanting "Power is like space — you don't ask for it, you take it" (Il potere è come lo spazio — si prende non si chiede), students and workers appropriate abandoned buildings to create sites that "autonomous" from the influence of the state and the market place. While the centri were first founded in the center of Northern industrial cities, in the past decade they have been established among the hideous and numbing high-rises built on the periphery of sprawling cities, as well as throughout the South.

Young squatters convert empty factories, schools, prisons, gas stations, and stores into cultural retreats offering films, concerts, discussion circles, and photography workshops. A number of centri publish fanzines, operate sophisticated recording studios, and broadcast pirate radio stations. These community initiatives also provide sorely needed social services like Italian language courses, day care, AIDS prevention, and drug counseling for students, workers, the unemployed, the homeless, and immigrants.

While members view their voluntary associations as significant contributions to the cultural life of underservered urban neighborhoods, they are under constant threat of police eviction and arrest.

From Punk to Rap, Late 1980s — Early 1990s

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, punk was the music of Italian centri sociali. By the late 1980s, the sound shifted to rap and it was said, "In every city a centro sociale, and in every centro a posse" (In ogni città un centro sociale, in ogni centro un posse).

Italian Rap groups like Lionhorse Posse and Nuovi Briganti (New Brigands) were formed in and became closely associated with the centri Leoncavallo in Milano and Messina's Fata Morgana, respectively. The tune "Curre curre guagliò" (Run, Man, Run!) by 99 Posse recounts the day in 1991 when 500 students and unemployed workers left a university assembly to retake the centro Officina 99 in Naples.

Two Italian Rap bands emerged from the centri sociali who are credited with revolutionizing Italian music and music making: Onda Rossa Posse and Isola All Stars.

Inspired by Public Enemy, Rome's Onda Rossa Posse (Red Wave Posse) formed in 1988 in the centro Forte Prenestino and its pirate radio station Radio Onda Rosse to create a "music from below" (musica dal basso) based on the contestual creativity of African American rappers. Rapper Militant A explains how this cultural adaptation occured:

"We, and others, searched to recreate in Italy the great energy of the American ghettos, but it's useless. There were those, in that period, who were rapping in Italian but did it in a way that was too much like the original sources, paying attention only to aesthetics, which is important, but it loses all sense if it's not tied to substance. And so it was natural to say, "Let's do it ourselves."

("Noi, e altri, cercavamo di ritrovare in Italia la grande energia dell'espressione dei ghetti statunitensi, ma inutilmente. Qualcuno, in quel periodo, fa rap in italiano, ma lo ripropone in modo troppo uguale ai modelli originari, badando solo all'estetica, che ha la sua importanza, ma se non viene collegata alla sostanza perde ogni senso. Allora viene natuarle dire: "facciamolo noi." )

In 1990, the Italian Rap band released the now legendary rap Batti il tuo tempo in response to the fall of the Soviet Union. The tune's chorus Batti il tuo tempo per fottere il potere ("Keep the beat and screw the power") became the battle cry of la Pantera student movement that opposed university privitization.

The following year, Onda Rossa Posse attacked the politics and economics of the Gulf War with its self-produced and distributed casette Baghdad 1.9.9.1. The Italian Rap song critiqued the United States with its flag "the color of death" and the complicity of media giants CNN and the Italian national RAI Corporation. Italy's involvement in that dirty little war was personified by the Italian air force pilot Cocciolone "who left Italy decisive and proud in his defense of petroleum" His plane was shot down and he was held prisoner. After the war, it was revealed that this media hero Cocciolone had pleaded with superiors not to go into battle.

Onda Rossa Posse created a model for radical rap in Italy that had a lasting impact on the self-described Movimento Antagonista. The Italian Rap groups Ak 47 and Assalti Frontali (Frontal Assault) emerged from the ashes of the defunct band.

Until the police shut it down in 1990, the centro sociale L'Isola nel Kantiere in Bologna was a major crucible of Italian rap. For five years, DJs and rappers gathered at the centro to take part in the informal jam sessions dubbed "Ghetto Blasters." An Italian-style "posse" formed during these all-night house parties, consisting of a loosely organized group without defined roles for artists and fans that jettisoned the rock concept of the "band."

In 1991, the centro's Isola Posse All Stars issued the underground hit Stop al panico, a biting description of state repression following the murder of three carabinieri officers on January 4, 1991 in the Pilastro section of Bologna. It turned out that the killings were the work of neo-fascists. Eventually, other Italian Rap artists were attracted to the Bolognese centro, like the transplanted cook from the Puglia Papa Ricky, the posse Sud Sound System from the Salentine peninsula in the South, and the influential group Sangue Misto. The work of these artists struck a balance between leftist politics and hip hop aesthetics.