Jamie T
Kings & Queens

You white folks, you can’t feel Jimi, you can only listen to him (quote.)

A homeless woman is sleeping on a bench. She calls me to ominously tell me that I’ll end up in prison. Cursed Cassandra!

A couple of hours pass and I find myself in that cell. And I had even given her a couple of sterling. It’s night, deep and profound. I’m in a 50x50. Bigger than my loft in Milan. If it weren't for the beer cans snoring next to me. Smelly Londoners. Look your face in the dark. They say I broke a traffic light. Me, who couldn’t even break a racket in mi vida. I feel proud. Good Save The Beer! Brilliant idea anyway: I don’t even remember being caught, damn mushrooms and damn English. (I should bomb them, them and this damn club).

When will they let me out? They send those from the embassy friend. A can responds and laughs. I have to go see Castro before I die. Me, Maradona, my friend. Meanwhile? The night is long, friend.

I start humming:

British Intelligence, they're on your back
And they won’t catch no one so they won’t catch me
Three, fours and right up your back
And you just got sacked, now your money’s not free

You're driving me crazy with this bullshit. But I was singing mentally. Lower the volume, here you are among gentlemen. Sir of the Fuck Off, you know?

Touchy cans in the land of Albion. Oh well.

To those who wish to reside in my head before the treacherous mushrooms’ effect...returns:

whistle. It’s not a good way to start, but are we really doing lordly things in prison? Jamie T. is liked by the English pussy and is someone for the youths. So how did this thing really start? I was watching “Smetto Quando Voglio” on TV, when the notes of a track between a rap and a disco piece took center stage and for a moment nothing else existed. Then actually the script was well written. Nice. Once in the bathroom, however, I intensely thought about that frame, that music, I even tried to reconstruct it, but it was evidently not the moment: the paper had run out. But that track...I trawled the net on Google, I had to find it. Jamie T. ‘Castro Dies’. The track on the tube was a hit. Well, I told myself. I felt young and smart. Wiki told me that the track was taken from “Kings & Queens”, Jamie T.’s second album.

The debut, on the other hand, is rather poor, all rap, no guitars, but, but... This “Kings & Queens” is a bomb, it might be the guitars, the rap, it might be the scent of pussy...

Jamie T. does several things together that in most cases shouldn’t even be tried, like skateboarding on a rocky road while eating a kebab filled with ketchup. He mixes rap, with dance, with funk, hip-hop and it’s all wrapped in a vintage halo. Those things you only do if you feel them. If you don’t feel them, well it’s better not to try. You listen and you get the feeling that some parts are even out of place, but if they weren’t there, nothing would work out the right way. Take ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’, it starts with a woman singing in French, then...

Queens in the pocket girl in a locket
Boys wanna knock it, other wanna rob it
I see when ya coming, girl, ya look stunning
Running for the friends of mine

it’s a (dis)graceful, boastful rap, then he adds a whirlwind of things: a bit of glam here, western music there that turns into a crude chorus to sing at the top of your lungs. How I hate explaining music, but what are you doing here writing a review? I didn’t have a ball to throw against the wall. That said... That blessed ‘Castro Dies’? I’m too old for this crap. And even older for reviews, but even worse at humming with a bully attitude, attempting a pathetic dance at Parco Sempione. Yet Jamie T. is that thing. Doses of energy mixed with apparent ignorance in a concoction of genres that have no reason to be together if not for the listener’s taste.

I will immediately clear the doubts from your misanthropic scrotums: you will not like it and not a single damn manual written by some Know-It-All asshole with absolute ear will make you like it. Damn prisons make me angry. They give you no choice and you have to share a few square meters with a cup to piss in and you always have to watch your back. But...

I own earth, wind and fire, it breeds the hunger
That keeps me on the road again

Get up. Yes, I’m talking to you with the know-it-all face. We’re giving you your rags back. Am I free? Sure, but you will never be able to set foot in our country again. A dirty fucking Italian with mandolino...For the last time, I see the silent morning light flash before my eyes riddled with failed life flying over London. No more mr nice guy. Like I care.
I’m going to Castro. Forever.

p.s. part of the events narrated here actually happened.