La Famiglia
Quarantunesimo parallelo

If we take a look at our record collection, we will identify some that evoke special feelings in us. I am referring to those works that have contributed to defining our musical tastes and to which we have always been attached, beyond their actual artistic value.

These albums, aside from occupying our stereos for entire days, have given us access to worlds previously unknown, allowing us to broaden our horizons and accumulate knowledge. In other words, to grow.

Over time, we've changed our judgment towards them, replacing an idolising naivety with a more reasoned analysis. However, one thing is certain: without the input provided by them, we wouldn't have gone further and would have avoided delving into unexplored continents, whose exploration allowed us to know others and especially ourselves better, with our inclinations and very personal sensitivities.

It is undoubtedly difficult to choose titles and place them in a hypothetical ranking, due to the diversity of our preferences and the criteria each of us uses to compose it. Personally, I can say with certainty that in my list, a special place would be reserved for Quarantunesimo parallelo, the debut of the Neapolitan trio La Famiglia.

Published back in 1998, Quarantunesimo parallelo is, in fact, the first hip-hop CD bought by a naive teenager towards the end of the last century, strictly "bootleg", as was customary at the time (no offense to the authors, who, in their lifetime, will have bought some mastered compact discs or audio cassettes, perhaps sourced from a legendary vendor in Piazza Dante or Pignasecca).

That LP with its essential cover, depicting three characters placed in front of a globe, with the group’s name formed from letters cut out of a magazine and the title, Quarantunesimo parallelo, indicating the bond between the Campanian capital and New York, the Mecca of hip-hop culture, has accompanied me for decades and continues to do so even now, in the era of rampant streaming and fleeting listening. Contributing to establishing a love which, although expressed in a detached manner and through quick visits to the scene of one’s own city (not counting live events: The Beatnuts, Tony Touch, Jungle Brothers, etc...), is still alive, very present.

Beyond this personal importance, the debut of Polo, Sha One, and DJ Simi also has historical relevance, being one of the very first LPs almost entirely rapped in dialect, a distinctive feature of the hip-hop that will henceforth be produced in Naples and, at the same time, its great limitation (allow me a personal opinion).

The Neapolitan dialect indeed possesses great musicality, which, combined with the presence of many words with truncated endings, makes it particularly suitable for the genre. However, there is a downside, because the insistence on creating rhymes in dialect has prevented a widespread distribution of works coming from the City of the Sun, creating a linguistic barrier that not even the presence of translated lyrics, as in this case, has been able to overcome (in reality La Famiglia, Co’ Sang, and Clementino have obtained decent visibility at the national level, but without achieving the success of various Club Dogo or Fabri Fibra).

That said, it is also true that the choice to rap in vernacular has helped create a precise identity, far from merely copying overseas sounds. And this is precisely the objective that La Famiglia aims to achieve in Quarantunesimo parallelo, namely to highlight the connection with the Big Apple, hence with the origins, and at the same time emphasize the differences, both from a verbal and musical standpoint.

Let’s dispel any misconceptions right away: Sha One and Polo are two remarkable MCs, capable of lining up rhymes like blocks in Tetris and boasting excellent writing skills, already demonstrated in some collaborations that had spotlighted their lyrical abilities (I am referring to “Solo fumo” by Neffa, “Mazz’ e panell” by Chief & Soci and “E uno, due, tre e quattro”, realized together with the Milanese DJ Enzo).

The two scratch the microphone with aggression or whisper delicate words, and their performance shines both in tracks centered on banter (the amusing tease of “Prrr!”) and in those devoted to ego trips and self-celebration (the devastating “Mast” or “Schia’o 5”), going through songs characterized by dark, nocturnal storytelling (“Fuje”, “Notte”, the latter enhanced by the featuring of Chief), up to “Odissea”, a touching dedication to their city which, in my opinion, reaches poetic heights comparable to those of “Napule è” by Pino Daniele (“Si vuò capì Napule, tecchete ‘e chiave int’e mane e si trase/È inferno e paraviso, sacro e profano, lotta tra Abele e Caino/Chi va facenno ‘e vote ‘e sante e chi ancora addumanna ‘a Sibilla sorte e destino”. Too bad for the slightly superfluous presence of Enzo Gragnaniello in the video clip).

Moving on to the sound aspect, things become more delicate and deserve a separate discussion. The beats are entirely created by DJ Simi, a prominent figure in the local music scene, known for having been part of the Angels of Love, a collective that organized countless house events and wrote the history of the Vesuvian club culture.

Simi's beats are very simple and do not reveal any particular stylistic research, sometimes enriched by string instruments and vocals halfway between soul and the Neapolitan tradition that risk bogging them down in a few too many stereotypes (for example in “Femmena”), in conclusion, they do their job, but are somewhat bare, empty, not fully convincing (especially in the second part of the record) and sometimes go unnoticed compared to the excellent performance of the group’s two MCs.

For these and other reasons Quarantunesimo parallelo does not achieve the highest marks, but it remains an excellent effort, a pioneering record that, despite some flaws, on one hand, establishes a Naples-New York connection and on the other hand demonstrates that doing hip-hop in Italy without mimicking Americans is possible and above all necessary.

I conclude this page with a note: today that teenager mentioned at the beginning has a few more years, far fewer hair follicles on his scalp, and a handful shading his face, but when he listens to “Odissea” he gets emotional almost like the first time. And that is undoubtedly a good sign.