Who are the latest generation neomelodics and their music and what do they represent? What messages do they convey to their audience and why is their music so successful? The European prosecutor Calogero Ferrara and the essayist Francesco Petruzzella analyze the phenomenon with testimonies, stories, documents and news episodes, which bring out the possible relationships between the mafia and the protagonists of the neo-melodic world, the European prosecutor Calogero Ferrara and the essayist Francesco Petruzzella analyze the phenomenon. From Thursday, 1 July, ‘La mafia che cantta – the neomelodici, their people, their squares’ will be available in bookstores and digital stores (Zolfo Editore, www.zolfoeditore.it). The authors, Calogero Ferrara, a magistrate from Palermo who for years dealt with the mafia and terrorism, Francesco Petruzzella, a scholar of criminal phenomena, analyze the relationship between neomelodic artists, the content of their songs and the mafia world, as well as the influence on young and old audiences.
The book, with an interesting preface by Dino Petralia, head of the DAP, investigates how, in a crescendo of messages that instigate violence and the triumph of the criminal system, certain neo-melodic songs become the instrument of an unsuspected criminal propaganda. A story that questions the reasons for the success of the “underworld singers”, analyzing the actual links with the mafia world and the contents of their lyrics, which “exalt the criminal heroism of those who claim to take possession of what they do not have by force could have had through social negotiation “. This is how songs like ‘Nu fugitive o’ O rre di Corleone (dedicated to the infamous Totò Riina), ‘O killer or Il mioamico camorrista enter the imagination of young and very young people as repeatable examples of those who managed to get fame and money starting from the places of marginality. And “it matters little if this diversity and superiority” passes “through the ostentation of the use of weapons, violence and drugs”, protagonists of texts and video clips.
With scruple in the search for sources, news and citations, in 198 pages ‘La mafia che canta’ recomposes a historical and social picture that is at the same time the frame of the phenomenon taken into consideration. To enrich the book, a careful verse by verse analysis of the most famous underworld songs.