Courtesy of hiphopmnm.it

Alessio Mariani is a high-school professor of Italian Literature and History in Reggio Emilia. He is also a rapper, artistically known as Murubutu. His style of rap mixes hip-hop and literature, history, philosophy, and it is defined as letteraturap (literature+rap). In the last six years, Murubutu produced four concept albums: Gli Ammutinati del Bouncin (Mutiny on the Bounty) 2014, where the songs are linked to the key concept of water; Tenebra è la Notte (a wordplay between Tender is the night and “Tenebra”, the Italian word for “Darkness”) 2019, connected to the notion of the night; Infernum (Hell) 2020, that is inspired by the first cantica of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

I want to focus on an album produced in 2016, L’uomo che viaggiava nel vento (The man who traveled in the wind), that is grounded in the key concepts of the wind, air, breath. In Murubutu’s opinion, the contents of this album are “many places crossed by one same wind that changes its name and features but always fulfills the same task, that is to collect stories and to keep them forever until someone wants to read them. A memory of airflow.” (https://www.novaradio.info/disco-della-settimana-murubutu/)

The album comprehends 14 songs:

  1. Anemos (Wind)

    Anemos is the Greek word for “wind”. In this song, Murubutu introduces a general idea of the wind, described as “the real tailor in the sky”.

  2. La Bella Creola (The Beautiful Creole)

    This song tells the story of an encounter between an Argentinian indigenous man and a female creole, who teaches him how to write. Here the wind is the medium through which the savage man, once returned to his land and become a “great writer of the time”, thanks to the creole: “A dedication for the beautiful creole vibrated in the wind / thank you for your whole love, our Madame Education.”

  3. Grecale (Gregale)

    This song tells the story of a blind dancer, which “feels the wind between the spaces she does not find anymore.” Here, the air is perceived as something that takes the place of the sight and allows the dancer to accomplish her dreams: “Giulia amazes dancing in the darkness / dancing on the stage she leaves the audience speechless.”

  4. Scirocco (Sirocco)

    Scirocco tells the story of Paolo, a young man that decides to run away from the monotony of his little town but dies in an accident with his motorcycle. The wind represents Paolo’s energy: “I will follow the wind / I don’t have a goal, I don’t have a place / but I have a detailed map to never return.”

  5. Mara e il Maestrale (Mara and the Mistral)

    Mara and Nando are a couple of old farmers. When Mara grows old, she thinks that Nando has run away: actually, Nando is always with her, but Mara suffers from Alzheimer and she is not able to recognize him. In this song, the wind is the force that messes up with Mara’s memory: “Maybe it is this powerful wind that breathes my memories away”, and “because in the wind I lost everything I had.”

  6. Bora (Bora)

    The main character of Bora is Luca, a young man afraid of the Bora, the tremendous wind that shakes the north-east of Italy, particularly the city of Trieste. In the end, Luca accomplishes to overcome this fear by developing a different point of view, rethinking the rushes of Bora as “a great healthy breath that sweeps the unhealthy air away”.

  7. Dafne sa contare (Daphne knows how to count)

    Through a comparison with Greek mythology, this song tells the story of a girl that is forced into an unwanted marriage by her father and eventually kills herself. Similarly to Daphne, the dryad that, in order to escape from Apollo’s sexual assault, was turned into a laurel tree by her father (the river Peneus), this girl is turned into air when she throws herself off the terrace: “You don’t feel the emptiness below you if emptiness is everywhere around you”. She takes a step and “Daphe is gone / she turned herself into the air”.

  8. Levante (Levant)

    In Levante, Murubutu is not the only one to sing. In fact, two other rappers participate with a verse. Therefore this song comprehends three different points of view and it is not strictly related to a specific topic but it is rather an erratic stream of consciousness on a general concept, the Levant, which is an easterly wind that gently blows in the Western Mediterranean. Murubutu defines the wind as an ancient language that only a few people can interpret: “It speaks through the comings and goings of dust waves in the lakes / or the knocks of the doors, the west-facing shutters / I believe who can read the pollen raised in vortex / without losing the wake.” Also, Murubutu’s description of this wind is worth-mentioning: “For me, it is not an event but a concept / or rather an element in concert / that pushes the boats of meaning on the rocks of its own melody.”

  9. Linee di libeccio (Libeccio)

    The libeccio is a hot wind that blows from the Sahara to the Mediterranean, and particularly in the South of Italy, where this story is located. Indeed, the song tells the encounter between an Italian girl, Maria, and an American soldier in Naples, during the Second World War. After the war, Maria marries the soldier and moves with him to Connecticut, where she has some difficulties because of Truman’s aggressive immigration politics. She eventually dies in a fire and “in the morning a breeze, in the extinguished air / raises her essence to leave America”. This breeze is not the Libeccio, that does not blow in the US and is rather connected to Maria’s hometown. Maria’s nostalgia for Libeccio symbolizes the nostalgia for Naples: “And now tell me how’s going / now that your wind is gone / what is the path that is going to guide your fingers.” This song explores the connection between wind and roots.

  10. Il Re dei Venti (King of the Winds)

    This song rebuilds the mythological genealogy of the four winds in the compass rose, Eurus, Zephyrus, Boreas, and Notos, since their origin from Eos and Astraeus. The features and the actions of the four winds are described according to different sources, such as the Odyssey and Greek artworks. For example Boreas “comes from the north, it has two huge faces and wavy hair” because it was depicted in this way in the Ancient Greek iconography. In this song, the notion of wind is investigated through classical mythology.

  11. Isobarre (Isobars)

    This song is linked to Wanderlust syndrome. The main character travels all over the world trying to escape from something that unfortunately is in her head: “Running away from the storm maybe she would have lost herself / with that wind in her head she was running away from herself.” In this song, the wind is a metaphor for madness, for the horreur du domicile that incessantly drives who is affected by Wanderlust syndrome.

  12. L’armata perduta di Re Cambise (King Cambyses’ lost army)

    This song tells the story, reported by the Greek historian Herodotus, of the army of Cambyses II, son of Cyrus the Great. Approximately 50000 soldiers were sent to conquer an oasis in Egypt’s western, but somewhere in the middle of the desert the army was submerged by a sandstorm and destroyed. Here the wind is a powerful instrument of death: “It came from nothing at the fiery sunset / it overwhelmed with its sound every body on the ground.”

  13. L’uomo che viaggiava nel vento (The man who traveled in the wind)

    This song tells the story of “the human condor” Angelo D’Arrigo, an Italian aviator who held several world records in the field of flight, principally with microlights and hang gliders, and eventually died in an accident during an airshow in 2006. Here the wind and the air are seen as limits that Angelo managed to overcome: “He is the man converted in a bird in the air element / and now he lives in a new body that is as one with the sky.”

  14. L’ultimo soffio (The last breath)

    The conclusion is instrumental only.

Here I do not want to analyze the specific features of Murubutu’s L’uomo che viaggiava nel vento. I aim to share a concept album that interacts with the notions of air, breath, wind through many different levels and angles; every track shows a connection with the topic of this course, and hopefully adds new points of view through which we can observe the subject matter.

I tried to translate accurately the original lyrics, paying attention to the sound as well. Unfortunately, I was unable to adapt most of the rhymes, but I hope that the basic meanings were successfully delivered at least.