Making Music from Below in a Southern Italian Metropolis

Abstract

Postcolonial studies literature considered Neapolitan social centres as spaces of hybridization of music styles from the global South, observing their deconstructing potential against racist discourse. More recent cultural production in Naples shows elements of continuity and innovation: organizing self-managed music festivals and mixing-up Latin American rhythms and sound system culture with folk music, Neapolitan social movements keep re-elaborating music genres of different Souths. The result is an original combination of resistant musicalities, vehicles for political messages. In the light of our active participation in these movements, we describe the evolution of the countercultural landscape of Naples, which is related to the evolution of Neapolitan urban commons. These are political projects based on the principles on collective use of urban areas, in which autonomous cultural production is realized through self-organization and sharing of spaces and means of production. Secondly, we aim to describe the experience of the NaDir Collective, a cultural project born within the commons “Scugnizzo Liberato”, re-shaping it as an open space for music self-production. The purpose of the activists is to combine skills and passions to build inclusive spaces for social aggregation, promoting underground and independent music production.