Nino D'Angelo
Terranera

Naples is a whore.

Many have had her: Greeks and Byzantines, Spaniards, Normans, French, German princes and Gothic barbarians, Saracen pirates and Arab merchants, Austrians, Piedmontese, and American soldiers; some took her by force or by deceit, some with vague promises and some - simply - by paying. She has given something to everyone and taken something from everyone.

She is a ragged queen, a cruel mother who drives away her children but then doesn't let them go; her wrinkles are cuts in the flesh, her wounds purulent sores. She is the porous city, an anthill of chaos that dries up in the sun yet capable of piercing you with a sudden Beauty that takes your breath away; a people soaked in History reduced to a rabble without memory, an effete bourgeoisie, and a tumor called "camorra." Boiling with lava and sea, if you weren't born here, I'm sorry, but you can't understand.

And fuck off if I seem unbearably rhetorical to you. Many have tried to tell her story without succeeding, do you think I could do it any better?

How do you describe a place where a Croce and a Nuvoletta were born, a Vico and a Lauro, Merola and Caruso, Fonseca-Pimentel, Totò, Agostino "o’ pazzo", Vanvitelli, the Di Sangro prince of San Severo, King Franceschiello, Carosone, and thousands of others, and where Virgil and Leopardi wanted their tombs?

Contradiction is the deity that rules this land.

And only here are certain stories possible: E.A. Mario who sold the rights to his works for a piece of bread to the "Milanese" and who worked at the post office for his entire life while all of Italy sang his "Canzone del Piave"; Masaniello, revolutionary, hero, despot, madman, visionary, and later saint, who wanted to turn Piazza Mercato into a port; Caccioppoli, a mathematical genius and nephew of Bakunin, who died by suicide, betrayed by the two great loves of his life, his wife and numbers; the silent rancor between Eduardo and Peppino. And all the others.

And, yes, even that of Gaetano D’Angelo, known as "Nino," the first of six children of one of the many families of this city. Money is scarce and school makes only promises it cannot keep; so Gaetanino becomes resourceful: he works as a shop assistant in a shoe store, an ice cream vendor, a delivery boy; small jobs while preparing for something else.

Something else because, at that school that cannot fulfil its promises, someone (for teasing or conviction I don't know) once said: "you are a poet who cannot speak" and Nino carried those words with him for his entire life. Without those words, that young man would have sought the hope of a different life elsewhere, maybe in wrong places and, instead, he carries that hope - himself - under the Galleria Umberto I, there in the center of Naples.

I also, a young brash and gullible strummer, frequented the "Galleria" and learned the "parlesia", the musician's language. And that is another place that, if you've never been, it's impossible to imagine and describe. Rows of musicians and aspiring singers and “artists" of all kinds and then DJs, journalists, label executives, managers, and "organizers," a melting pot of varied humanity, smoke, and coffee scent, deals, intrigues, a market of dreams.

And money, lots of money.

Because with that stuff a lot of money circulates, much of which, incidentally, is "nobody's child" (we're talking about one of the most functioning and seasoned "laundries" of the camorra and beyond).

Nino does a bit of apprenticeship and then, at the right moment, they ask for money, because you have to pay for your first record out of your own pocket. And so comes "’A storia mia (’O scippo)” his first 45 rpm record and, shortly after, the album with the same title. And it makes an immediate impact: over 50,000 copies! Sure, stuff that doesn't go beyond the confines of Campania but Nino, who isn't even 20 years old yet, is already a leading name in that realm.

Now, he has a tuneful voice but not very powerful or expressive; indeed, to be honest, even a tad anonymous; and even on the "physique du rôle" there would be something to say: sure he is blonde with blue eyes like a Viking, and he already has his unmistakable "bob," but he is a little taller than a bottle cap and is "thin" as a stick, and he has that "somewhat so" face of someone with Maghreb genes embedded in his DNA. But the kid has something, shall we call it "talent"?

Sure, maybe someone - with a hint of malevolence - would suggest that the young man has some relatives in the "circuit" (like his father-in-law, Vincenzo Gallo), but that would be an unfounded insinuation: it's really minor stuff and a lot of other "singers" with much better connections are still doing weddings.

The real turning point, however, comes with the cinema. And here, it is worth briefly telling another story and, forgive me patient reader, if I will again abuse (as usual) your time, but trust me: it is worth it.

Ciro Ippolito is a rogue genius, an irregular, oblique, and elusive character who moves from Rossellini to Neapolitan dramas, from stays in national jails to million-dollar lawsuits with the 20th Century Fox, from Mastelloni's Theater to non-sense delirium with the Squallor and a bunch of other stuff. We are in the twilight of that challenging decade that were the 70s and that sort of "Italian exploitation" is emerging that will be recorded in the annals of our cinema's history with the name (pretty ugly to be honest) of "polizziottesco", Ippolito realizes that, among a rebelling Milan, a violent Rome, and a heavily armed Genoa, there's a place for a Naples caliber 9 (plus serenade) and that, between Merli's commissioner Belli and Milian's "Monnezza," Mario Merola's face fits very well.

And he sees it just right.

Thus the face of "our" Mario emerges forcefully from a - rich but still narrow - purely regional scope to impose itself at the national level; and that success also carries with it a whole "Napolitanity" that begins to bear fruit even at the box office. So, among the Mario Trevi, the Nunzio Gallo, the Carmelo Zappulla, the Mario and Sal da Vinci, collecting the cash we find our Nino too and someone almost naturally comes up with the idea that Nino and Marione can be a great couple: Nino, the designated heir of the great Mario.

The idea seems good, resulting in two films: "Tradimento" and "Giuramento" (needless to say, for your humble scribe, they are two "classics"), but Marione doesn't agree: the "piccirillo" there is casting a shadow on him and does not know his place; hence Mario will find a less "encumbering" protégé like Gigi D’Alessio, his band's keyboardist).

No matter, by now Nino is launched. In 1983 "’Nu jeans e ‘na maglietta" comes out and Nino makes it big: over a million copies sold! And now, for that stuff it can't be discussed simply as "Neapolitan songs," this stuff is different, a new name is needed: thus emerges the "neomelodic" genre.

Throughout the '80s and part of the '90s, Nino manages something incredible: with that somewhat so face, with that somewhat so voice, with that somewhat so background, he becomes a national (and not only: in '86 he even gets to the Olympia in Paris) Pop Star and sex symbol. It is those years, between sequins and jackets with shoulder pads, Duran Duran and Ridge from "Beautiful," Nino's blonde bob didn't look out of place at all!

But then, time passes (and trends too, thank God) and, like it or not, you have to grow up and start getting older too. Certain things the mirror already tells you, but if you do not understand them life will do the job. For Nino D’Angelo, the turning point comes with the death of his parents, the crisis of ideas and audience has already started some time ago and depression follows and, apparently, a suicide attempt. Helping him out will be the family, Faith, and Music.

Away goes the blonde bob, away goes the glamour and away also goes all that "neomelodic" stuff and the whole round that revolves around it.

The pivotal album is titled "Tiempo" and sells almost nothing, but Nino doesn't care: the people will understand. The boy has grown up and there's no turning back.

The critics, however, do notice and a few conscious artists too. The first to raise an eyebrow is Goffredo Fofi, then the Bisca and Roberta Torre understand that it is time to call him; and thus come the awards and accolades, from the Silver Ribbon to the David di Donatello to the Golden Globe (all for the soundtrack of "Tano da morire"). However, one should not misunderstand: we must talk of evolution, of growth and not change. D’Angelo is always the same, even works of undeniable depth like the soundtrack of "Tano da morire" and this "Terranera" which moves towards masterpiece territory (and don’t take such a statement lightly), are in perfect continuity with "’Nu jeans e ‘na maglietta" or "Fotografando l’amore"; it's D’Angelo himself who underlines it by bringing them together in concert and not even ashamed of the many falls that have punctuated his path (one for all, "Gesù Cri", a terrifying cover of "Let It Be").

Nino D’Angelo is a popular (author, not just performer) and not Pop author, and you should understand the difference: the many musical souls of the "porous city", which have never really been able to dialogue with each other have always used the "popular" as an ingredient - even main - but added to a basis (whether it was the folk of NCCP or the jazz-rock of Napoli Centrale, the dub of Almamegretta or the rap of Co'Sang) establishing a dialectical relationship with it, trying to "advance a discourse" on that "popular." Even a Pino Daniele or a Massimo Ranieri don't immerse their hands in that "foam."

Not D’Angelo. D’Angelo is that stuff, stuff that you can't even enhance by pulling out the "tradition." Here there is no risk of smelling even a hint of intellectualism (and the paternalism that has always accompanied its bowing to the popular); here kitsch is a risk that must be taken, an ingredient to be measured, in some aspects even a virtue; I would be tempted to say, with purposely excessive rhetorical artifice, that D’Angelo surpasses Pasolini "on the left" but, I fear I might be misunderstood.

But if you don't want to heed these ravings of mine, then just try to give this "Terranera" a couple of listens. I've already said it's a little gem, and that our man has talent too; if you've got at least a couple of gems from the Luaka Bop or Real World catalog at home (and Gabriel even tried to collaborate with D’Angelo) this "Terranera," goes perfectly with that stuff. Even in that small defect that those productions carry: the scent of a production work that is a bit too "clever," where a certain residue of "greasy" popular might have been too well cleaned, that in the suburbs of San Juan or Lusaka (as well as Naples) they don't really play quite like that.

Maybe if you want a pinch more honesty you should look for it in the ragtag epic of an "Aitanic" or an "O schiavo e o re".

But it's an ungenerous critique.

If in "Terranera" you glimpse a pinch of cleverness, that's an ingredient that fits. It fits. Trust me. I told you: all of us who were born in Naples, in the end, are children of a whore.

Dedicated to @Withor because a promise is a debt.