Caparezza and the language of Italian rap Cover Image

Caparezza e la lingua del rap italiano
Caparezza and the language of Italian rap

Annarita Miglietta: „Sulla lingua del rap italiano Analisi quali-quantitativa dei testi di Caparezza”. Firenze 2019, 126 p.

Author(s): Alessandro Ajres
Subject(s): Music, Studies of Literature, Italian literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: rap; Italy; Italian rap; Caparezza; literature

Summary/Abstract: Miglietta’s work (Sulla lingua del rap italiano. Analisi quali-quantitativa dei testi di Caparezza. Firenze 2019) focuses on qualities of texts by Italian rapper, Caparezza. Because of what he does with the language, it is pretty hard to find for him and for his songs a unique definition. The conceptual premise of the work in question is that the raper from Molfetta represents something other than what we have heard up in Italy to this moment, and that we can compare him and his rhymes to poetry lines. The vocabulary is what probably most distinguishes Caparezza from the surrounding environment. An important part of his lexicon is joined to literature and the literary samples represent another indication of the specificity of Caparezza’s work compared to most Italian rappers. The rapper from Molfetta makes use of literary quotations in abundance and in a meaningful way, without relegating himself to a fashion quotation. He quotes for example in his texts Quasimodo, Leopardi, Manzoni, Dante Alighieri and some of his songs are directly inspired by writers (i.e. Dickens, Canzone a metà). In Italy he belongs to a kind of rap that we can call “intellectual”, or PhD rap, which has some similiarities with Polish intelingentny rap.

  • Issue Year: 4/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 1-8
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Italian