28-08-07, page 27, Spettacolo,
Il Centro |
Raiz of Almamegretta
tells about his relationship with the writer Fante, living
without a passport
Jolanda Ferrara
|
|
|
Gennaro
Della Volpe (Raiz)
|
“The
soul of the migrant is the thing which interests me the
most. When you are halfway there you cannot become a
fundamentalist, so you will never make a war to affirm that
there is just one earth, one blood”, Raiz says, without half
measures, his voice historically that of
Almamegretta
(in Neapolitan “anima migrante” {migrating soul}) one
of the best known voices of today’s scene in Italy, more
than ever a “nomad”, without a passport, wop, a modern-day
Ulysses busy with his odyssey of cultural migration. Gennaro
Della Volpe, known as Rais, Raiss o Raiz, says, “I chose a
name that sounded exotic, of Jewish origin, belonging to
both shores of the Mediterranean, an “uprooted root”. In the
last few days, he was the protagonist of the first evening
of the Literary Festival “Il Dio di mio padre” (My Father’s
God) dedicated to John Fante, the Italo-American author
whose family originated in Torricella Peligna, which took
place in the Sangro-Aventino territory and concluded on
Sunday evening. He was invited to the afternoon meeting run
by the magazine Mente locale (Local Mind), and then in the
evening to the unedited musical reading “Nella stanza di
Bandini” (In Bandini’s Room); Raiz conjured up the
imaginary which characterised the life and work of Fante.
How did his meeting with Fante happen? "For me Fante is a
great master. Like him, I write directly about my
experiences, looking at the particular reality of the
historic districts of Naples whilst feeling completely
extraneous, like a Neapolitan in Milan." Like Fante between
America and Abruzzo. “You meet Fante when you love the
culture that is at stake. He is very American in his
writing, but there is something that leads him back here
more than ever where his roots are, a world more told about
(by his family) than actually lived. When he writes and
speaks in English, you can hear how much he has studied. The
use of dialect makes him distort the name of his village and
you understand the really low level of his knowledge of his
mother culture, the culture of memory, the missing link, the
incompleteness that indicates it. He is American, but not
one hundred percent. Living in the middle of it is like
feeling yourself living as a wop, without passport. For a
long time in America, wop meant to be Italian." What does it
mean for you as a Neapolitan? “Naples, the city where I was
born, is land in the middle between the East and the West,
the North and the South of the Mediterranean. I have always
loved the meeting of cultures in the middle of one identity
and another. I try to stay in the middle, but perhaps it is
a condition of ease. In Naples they say “o culo e
malassiette” (your
arse
can't choose where to sit)
about someone who isn’t really on either side, which is also
the other side of the saying “dovunque posso mettere il
cappello mi sento a casa mia” (wherever I can lay my hat is
where I feel at home). Maybe the true Italian character is
to be without borders, so I propose Italy as a country that
is the symbol of peace, of everyone living together, of
diverse mixes.” From Rap to Reggae-dub in his latest album
(“Wop”, his first as a soloist), to give voice to the
condition of half-caste without land, homeless, without
roots? “I chose Reggae-dub because it is the most
bastardised base of music. I sing in dialect, my voice
modulates like a middle-eastern singer. I like to take my
western matrix and move it further east. I feel free to use
a non-language language, a non-official language, without
passport”. Why choose to separate yourself from the group
Almamegretta? “It was an inner need, fruit of my
restlessness, necessary to affirm my own identity. I chose
to be a soloist to do something else and I found myself an
orphan, without any references. I went backwards. “Wop” is
the record of someone lost, out of their element.”
|