Some people understand the differences between cultures understood not as evidence of a rich and plural reality but as violent and exclusive antagonisms to be exterminated for the benefit of fierce uniformity. Sadly, we have to live moments in which concepts such as the "clash of civilizations" threaten to become dogmatic impositions whose consequences are beginning to be seen ...
Perhaps for this reason, now more than ever, the effort of talented musicians such as Eugenio Bennato (who was the founder of the prestigious Nuova Compagnia Di Canto Popolare) is commendable for reminding us of the richness of our musical traditions. Taking the millennial tarantella (ritual dance of Southern Italy) as a starting point, the Neapolitan explores, together with Taranta Power, his young band, roundtrip influences between his native land, that East that we have never accepted as Next and the North African culture. In this album, the hypnotic rhythm of the tambourine is mixed with gnawa echoes, while the battente guitar (a percussive guitar whose sound constitutes the soul of the tarantella) is merged between oriental instrumentation.
Bennato has verified in his concerts offered in Algiers as the Mediterranean that he never constituted an insurmountable obstacle, on the contrary, its waters have been a way of meeting. The ancestral rhythms of tarantella are not alien to Algerians. As he himself explains “in Algiers I have verified how in a few moments the prejudices and mistrust of the public towards the colonizing and privileged European can collapse; after the first beats of tamburello and battente guitar the Algerian boys have felt like protagonists of a music that also belongs to them ”. As we said, perhaps there is no better time to rethink the existence of a common root that, in some way, links the settled towns from end to end of the Mediterranean. So, “Che Il Mediterraneo Sia”