“Yo, Brothers and Sisters”: Jovanotti’s “ugly book”
As you will read later, of the book to which Auroro Borealo (here our interview) dedicates this chapter of his “ugly book of the ugly books” I have some responsibilities. I still keep two copies, a still blissed even, that one day my son will sell on Ebay (where you can currently be purchased for 129 euros).
For the kind concession of the author and the Blackie editions I can share with you the chapter dedicated to Jovanotti’s “Yo, Brothers and Sisters”.
title Yo, Brothers and Sisters. Are we or are we not a nice movement?
author Jovanotti
publisher Vallardi Editori brothers
year 1988
1988 is Jovanotti’s golden year. His first album come out, «Jovanotti for president! ” and the individual split-classification “Is the party here? 2 and “Gimme Five”, who catapult Lorenzo Cherubini in the Olympus of Italian musicfrom which it will no longer go down.
Jovanotti’s amazing success is not only due to his music, but also to his style and way of communicating. Lorenzo Porta In an Italy still beating a breath of freshness. With his wide clothes, his very fast speakers and his incomprehensible slang At the over 18 he immediately becomes the darling of young people.
This is his period considered “party”, “tamarro”, “deficient” or, as Michele Serra wrote, of “full cretinism”. An arch Short but intense storm, just over two years, since the end of 1987 Until 1990, after which with the third unreleased album, “Young Jovanotti”, Despite the usual light and carefree songs, it was understood that something It had changed. The era of the “Yo!” And “Is the party here?” It was over.
But let’s go back to 1988. This new is necessary to be eternal trend in a document that will remain with future generations. Here you are therefore that, after approval of the omnipresent Claudio Cecchetto, Scopriter of Lorenzo and at the time his manager, the first autobiography comes out Jovanotti’s officer, entitled “Yo, Brothers and Sisters. We are o Are we not a good movement? “.
More than an autobiography, the book is a collection of key concepts on which Lorenzo goes up free, speaking of the topic that gives the title to the paragraph. They range from school to the mirror, from shoes to television, from London to Riccione.
But first the preface by Roberto D’Agostino, who in an attempt to interpret the language of Jovanotti writes a very long “Rap-Sodia for Yo “, of which I will report only a few verses:
Jovanotti is a type in bomber
Jovanotti is a hamburger bomb
Jovanotti is Maramaldo
Jovanotti is a reversal
Jovanotti is language
Jovanotti is “Thanks for ugly”
Jovanotti is balance balance
Jovanotti is with a cheek like an orange
Jovanotti is “Ragamuffin”
Jovanotti is “Rap-Buffin”
Jovanotti is Jovanotti
One ten thousand casinotti.
I send a paypal of 50 euros to those who will be able to explain to me what the “Rap-buffin”.
We enter the heart of this book of which, as far as I know, Jovanotti He has no longer spoken publicly from the 90s onwards. And in fact, To read the chapter on the first time that Jovanotti tried McDonald’s in London, it almost seems that this book comes from a Parallel universe, billions of light years away from Lorenzo we know Now.
«But the top was McDonald. It was the first time I saw A McDonald, for me it was a flash. Those hamburgers were a real one Pippa, then the chips … Madonna, if I think back to what I tried When I shot myself the Milkshake! It was beautiful, he had a color mythical, a spatial color. Nice McDonald, great place ».
Or again, when he talks about Silvio Berlusconi before his career politics:
«I once read a newspaper, and it was written that Berlusconi earned a 50,000,000,000 stuff per year, which meant a figure of Spatial money. From that moment it was nice to me, because One who earns so much cannot be unpleasant. For me berlusconi It is like Paperon de ‘Scrooge, more Scrooge than Rockerduck: Scrooge bangs because in the end he wants to bathe in money, while Rockerduck is one who wants to make the money to put it in the ass in Scrooge.
Berlusconi just wants to bathe in money. He wants to be in his storage and take the bath. Once I met him, Berlusconi. I was al Gran Gala of TV. I get too much to think that one is the main of Pippo Baudo and Raffaella Carrà, who gives him a salary at the end of the month! “
To conclude what I like to call “the Trilogy of turbocapitalism by Jovanotti », the chapter on« I clothes you! », The clothing brand conceived by Lorenzo and Cecchetto who produced nails, T -shirts, hats and backpacks:
«The stuff is not made for the cool, it is made for people who come from the Bronx. People used to the Bronx. If not You are used to it is a mess. The Yo line is made on purpose to survive in the Bronx of your city. Because each city has its own Bronx – Rome, Milan, any village. Even if they have different names. So you can go around quiet, in your Bronxettini, in the more discos terrible and do the whole casino you want. The true mess ».
For me this book is a relic. A sacred grail that tells a precise moment of Italian youth culture. To find out more I interviewed the person who appears as editor in the book credits, But that in reality, I will discover shortly, he is the person that this book He actually wrote it. Franco Zanetti is a legendary figure in world of Italian culture. Journalist, director of Rockol, he wrote For many newspapers and was also a record record in EMI and CGD, but Above all, he founded the Mi-Sex, the Milan Sex Fair.
At the time Zanetti wrote for the magazine “Deejay Show”, the organ of Official propaganda of Radio Deejay, strongly desired by Claudio Cecchetto. It was therefore natural to entrust to the team of the magazine La Sterura Jovanotti’s book. Franco says Lorenzo, like all The stars in their golden moment was very busy in those years, So he certainly could not stop to write, so the secretary of Sabina Piperno editorial staff went to interview him with a minregistrator cassette. He recorded about an hour and a half of tapes, in which she provided The topic and Jovanotti spoke free -wheel; Then Zanetti had The speeches and reorganized the topics is undermined. Tells to have employed exactly a weekend to write it. The most thing complicated it was to decide the order, so that there was a speech, An organicity, a flow, to stay on the subject.
But, more importantly, Franco Zanetti confirms that what It emerges from the pages of the book is not the result of a literary calculation, but It is 100%Lorenzo, with his ways of saying, his expressions, his thoughts, his philosophy. A Jovanotti in purity, vintage 1988.
Of this purity I have to give credit to Lorenzo, although there are some Rather badly bad steps, such as the chapter on the “pisches”:
«For example, with the Groupies. The bad trait, indeed very bad, are Bad with them and I do the cool, I don’t even lower me. Why This is a plague that I discovered from the world of music. Second me a girl cos. It’s stupid, and I don’t want a stupid Fuck it. Because I have a lot of respect for me. It’s as if you go In a shit disco, if you have respect for yourself you don’t go to A place of shit. You have to choose a place where you are fine. And then I don’t want to go with one who maybe fucked it an hour earlier Johnny hates jazz, I don’t give a shit. But there They are a lot of these here. I recommend that you never behave from Groupie, also because for almost all the singers they are really The last step are the subject of taking the piss. Even if, of course, For some of them they are life ».
Not to mention the personal ranking drawn up by Jova on the figures most important of the night, in order from the most important to the least important:
Top ten of the night
1. Disc-Jockey
2. Public Relations staff
3. Goalkeepers of the premises
4. Actors, models, TV people, singers
5. Gay
6. Barists (also croissants)
7. Beautiful pussies
8. Buttavores
9. Payers
10. Metronotte
Apparently gays made category in themselves. There could not be that, that I know, a croissant or a gay metronotte. A triptych of chapters now follows which I will define as “confused”; Let’s start with the one on the gym:
“Now there I already go more. Before I went there, because I read some singers who go Always in the gym, of Madonna who goes by bike, and then I went there Me too. It’s nice, but now it’s a mess. I would like to become big, have the muscles, that when you sing for three hours you don’t get tired, efficiency Superman type physics, which go up ten meters and then sing, then think and you have The brilliant thought. I would like to be able to do well everything I comes to mind. I would like to know how to fly ».
We continue with the section dedicated to the boxers (the underpants, not i dogs):
«I discovered the boxers late, unfortunately, I discovered two years and a half ago, for. Then I didn’t give them up anymore, because it’s too good to have The pea that travels is too beautiful. I have always brought it the trousers wide, but with the briefs you don’t need to have large trousers, then when I discovered that in addition to the wide trousers, the Large underpants, it was a liberation. Then the boxers are fine, right? ».
To conclude with the chapter on drugs in which, after reiterating categorically he does not drug, he has never doped and never He will take drugs, Jovanotti starts a strange dissing against Toto Cutugno:
«A good disc-jockey must put the right music, sweat and do sweat people. And he must keep the ruins away, because the ruins they also ruin the others. If the ruins arrive, it is a mess. If they begin Twenty come to arrive is a great mess. There are always the Exceptions: Don’t use drugs in this environment is an exception.
All the music, always, has been influenced by a particular type drugs; My drug is special, particular, unique … also the music by Toto Cutugno is influenced by a type of drug, which It is red wine; mine is not influenced by any type of drug, simply by sweat, from the casino, from laughing, by the use of Laughter: While I get drunk with Gasata water, and so I sweat, sweat and I also enjoy sweating ».
This book truly testifies to a Zeitgeist, a peculiar moment Jovanotti’s career, perhaps the moment when it was more profoundly divisive. I have always wondered what you think of this Book the Lorenzo of the present day. I allowed myself to ask Franco Zanetti who, also by virtue of his position as authoritative Journalist, with Lorenzo he has always had a good relationship. Zanetti He replied: «I have not yet understood if you keep it as a precious memory of that time that is no longer there, therefore to be jealously guarded, or if you simply consider it as a guilty pleasure when it was young”.
To posterity the arduous sentence. As for me, I can only conclude by reporting the last chapter, which I will abstain from commenting:
The ideal woman
«Without make -up, always cheerful, of those that do not break the cock, One who does everything you say, always smiling and kind, one of the intelligent ones that when you speak they understand everything, immediately to the first, who never get pissed off, who make you two thousand cuddles But then they do not break, and they are very intelligent and speak very well And when you are in the company they make you make a space figure Because they are also exaggerated pussies. Why don’t I get married? Why I don’t find one like this »!
