Francesco Pepe, My Dutch Paisan

Francesco Pepe of the Netherlands and I (NYC) have been communicating for few years now about Italian vernacular culture after a chance encounter on the Net. Francesco, the son of immigrants from Pagani (Salerno province, Campania) was googling hip hop and came across my site italianrap.com. He emailed me to ask what Italian Americans thought about black rappers using mafia references in their music. A flurry of emails traversed the planet as our conversation turned to various aspects of a transnational popular culture (to update a key Gramscian concept), from contemporary cinema to Neapolitan singer Mario Merola to tammurriata frame drumming during the feast of the La Madonna delle Galline in his ancestral town.