Mandara
5 Questions To

I recently reviewed the album of this artist with Calabrian roots, a true globetrotter; a wanderer, a sponge, a collector of emotions. Gennaro De Rosa, alias Mandara, is the winner of the latest "Sounds of the Border" award. A relatively new award, yet already won by illustrious names such as Teresa De Sio with the album "Riddim a Sud" and a fellow percussionist from De Rosa's region, Leon Pantarei. I contacted Gennaro by phone for "5 questions" (as debaser.it offers), and he was very available, happy about the recognition of the only Italian award dedicated to World-Music and research music, like the kind Mandara has been making for years.

Giovanni Rizzo: Hi Gennaro! First of all, congratulations on the "Sounds of the Border" award, which you received because your album fully represents the current clash/meeting of cultures and achieves a beneficial melting pot of cultures and languages by mixing Arabic with German, English with Bengali, in the spirit of third millennium world music. Were you aware that you had created something so significant?

Mandara: (Laughs) Actually, no, I wasn't really aware that I would achieve this effect, but I tried to put into this work a bit of everything I had gathered in years of live activities, travels, meetings, and also clashes... which were also noticed, by the way (laughs). I'm really happy about this recognition, which comes at an important and particular time. It's a useful boost of confidence and then in a field that is very important to me, such as integration and the meeting of races and cultures. I've made numerous trips and met so many people of all kinds, and the best thing has been to host and welcome all these people in my studio in Calabria. I live in the South... and I think deciding to live in the South and "do business" is a decidedly "Borderline" choice.

G.R.: You live in the south, but you have made the south a kind of station, a pit stop, a caravanserai. After being everywhere, you return and imprint on silicon the traces you've left around the world. What is your approach to the South and its social and political dynamics?

Mandara: What a question!! First of all, thank you for the "Traces" (Laughs). I really hope to have left some and that they might have been useful. I need to come back home, that's the truth. I need to smell the scent of my land. I had been away for quite a while. And I've spent a few months recently in my homeland. It was a great moment of reflection, of "cleansing," of selection, and of big decisions concerning my life. And then, come on, Giovanni, it did bring me some luck... right??

G.R.: What does Mandara represent to you and how do you live this sort of professional dualism? After all, Mandara is the one of free expression and creativity, Gennaro De Rosa the "respectful and receptive" professional, as a colleague described you a few days ago in a Calabrian newspaper.

Mandara: Well..!! you've actually answered it. I believe it's exactly like that. Even though, in reality, these two hypothetical personalities blend, coexist, and live together if they manage not to clash. I experience a sort of creative schizophrenia that leads me to be changing and not always the same person. I try to be as the situation requires. It doesn't mean not having a defined personality but being, in a certain way, capable of living harmoniously with every kind of people with different uses, customs, languages, religions. I believe that this mood is essential in the multi-ethnic world we live in.

G.R.: The award was given to you by MEI, ARCI, and "Amnesty International," which is an international human rights organization, a global community of human rights defenders united by principles of international solidarity. Your latest work, "Mandara," was chosen among all Italian albums produced last year.

Mandara: ...I'll interrupt you! Mandara is a project that I've been continuing for a long time, and I have always kept the direction to follow in mind... This project started with a first work entitled "Bisanzio," continued with "Alatul," and concluded a path with this 3rd album, which I deliberately titled "Mandara." In all three of these works, exploring the cultures of the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa, and the Far East, we have always wanted to engage with the most marginalized cultures, respecting all peoples, their traditions, and their cultural models. The challenge was to contain in our work so many fragments of the world... and I'm happy that this has been noticed.

G.R.: Thank you for the quick chat, and I hope to see you soon, maybe at a concert of the Mandara project or with the "Pentole&Computer" project with 99 Posse Marco Messina. I also had the chance to see you contaminate the music of 99 Posse in a recent concert in Calabria.

Mandara: ...well... not so recent. The last concert in Calabria with the Posse was a year ago by now. Anyway, that too was a great experience in political and artistic growth... and then I can assure you it was really fun to play the tammorra on a track like "S'Addà Appiccià" (Laughs). As you can see, "contamination" and "border" are always present... it's just a natural thing... the challenge is then finding artists willing to let themselves be contaminated without putting up "Borders." Music has no borders. We should learn a lot from the grooves of records and transfer everything into the fabric of society.