The reasons why Italy definitely deserves Bello Figo's songs

A very very old kind of ignorance, you know, makes many people blame immigrants about everything. Among the reasons a country may have a racist behaviour, we can number its history, its welfare, its education system, and, obviously, its politicians. 

Italy is (has always been) a suspicious, sometimes a little scared country towards other cultures. Since I’m from Italy but live in London, I’m very well acquainted with that particular curiosity of the Italian citizen who wonders all the time: “What does the rest of the world think about us, about our accent, about our government?...”  And this is really good, insofar as it helps a country to import the best aspects and ideas from other places; but, most of the times, this curiosity just shows the fact Italy doesn’t feel part of an international, multicultural system. Officially, beyond the Alpes and Sicily, there’s a strange, exotic, huge region which tries all the time to weaken Italian economy and integrity; there are threats everywhere: both EU and immigrants make Italy terribly poor.

Immigration from Libya, from Syria, from many African countries etc. is one of the main Italian problems; which means, immigrates themselves are not the problem, but the way they are to be admitted and treated in Italy. Should you ignore this, lots of them die during their (very expensive) journey throughout the Mediterranean. Many of them are exploited for very hard and underpaid harvesting jobs in Southern plantations, which also led to some riots by black immigrants against the caporali (the unofficial “masters” of many poor day labourers). 

One of the most efficient methods thanks to which some politicians gain votes and support is blaming people from different cultures, with a different skin. They steal our jobs, they rape our women, they don’t pay taxes, they stink, they drink, and obviously the reason of their actions is always easily recognizable. The last legend about immigrants, especially the black ones, is that, as soon as they reach the Italian soil, they earn money daily (thanks to Italians’ taxes!) without any job, they get a house, and, in many cases, they can live in luxury hotels without any extra costs. 

This legend was steadfastly told by politicians during the catastrophic earthquake of August 2017 which damaged several towns of central Italy: making people think about all the honest Italians who lost their houses in comparison with all the unemployed immigrants living serenely in a five stars hotel and eating pasta all the time was a very smart strategy which racist parties could shake Italians’ basic instincts with. When a country is in dire straits, what’s better than channelling fools’ rage against imaginary problems?

But a sassy champion suddenly came, the chosen one who could laugh at such a legend in order to spread the truth; a black hero wearing horrible, shiny clothes who sang to Italian people their own shallow, narrow-minded opinions: his name is Bello Figo (something like: handsome cool guy). This young superslim Ghanian guy with a Hello Kitty tattoo on his chest, this rapper-like singer whose music videos nowadays count millions of views, made many (not musically brilliant, that’s true) songs about all the main Italian stupid commonplaces. He lives in Parma, but he didn’t emigrate to Italy on a boat, like many of his compatriots; he sings in Italian, and his strong African accent makes some Italian words particularly funny.

Source: https://www.dailybest.it/musica/bello-figo-referendum-costituzionale/

This artist of trolling, this juggler of bad words mocked basically all the topics you could find in a typical conversation between Italian dumbasses: from the enviable richness of Berlusconi the Great to the legendary strenght of Juventus, from the famous evergreen charm of Benito Mussolini, the unforgettable, efficient, still very sympathized with dictator of the 40s, to the immortal beauty of famous actors; not to talk about the compelling wish of sexual pleasure (let the epic line be told: I’ll bed you ten times, and after that I’ll block you on WhatsApp), or the rampaging fear of the IS group.The expensive smartphone, the branded belt, the gossip tv shows: any of the most common Italian topics have been told in his songs which won him fame and money.

But most of Bello Figo’s art is expressed in his songs about all the morons’ certainties about immigrants. He sang all of them, as an open-hearted street performer: I love raping the Italian girls, I steal bicycles as soon as I can, I live with the government’s benefits, I hate working, Italian president allowed me to pass your borders and eat your food etc. Bello Figo’s technique is a refined provoking scream towards all the natural born white patriots. “I beat my son”, he sings in his darkest song, Sono bello come profugo, despite of the fact he definitely has no children; namely, hate me because I’m a black violent person.

"They give our houses to immigrants, and the refugee boasts about that: I don't pay rent".
 Source: http://www.supereva.it/bello-figo-alessandra-mussolini-lite-diretta-tv-immigrazione-26262

How Italian average donkeys reacted to his fame, that’s not difficult to imagine: they took Bello Figo very very seriously, to the point he was invited by some tv shows in order to be scolded and insulted by politicians and crowds of poor Italians worried about their wallets and their dignity. The rage of the Member of the European Parliament Alessandra Mussolini (yes, she’s his granddaughter), and her scream: “Go back to your country!” are probably the best proof that Bello Figo won against everything and everyone. He can already afford to be insulted by very important people, which means his style got exactly what it was meant to get. He played a role for long time, and obviously only few were smart enough to notice that it was just a role.

Bello Figo is not just a cunning youtubber; he’s a symbol, an outcome of chrisis of values (more than economical chrisis), the most perfect reaction to the great xenophobic trend which seems to affect more and more the Western countries. I’m not saying I’m sure he’s conscious to be a symbol: probably someone behind him expressly created his style and his lyrics, in order to make him a funny rich icon of our times. But this doesn’t really matter. Everyone knows you need some intelligence to appreciate irony: during a very hard time for Italy, it looks like most of Italians prefer to blame Bello Figo instead of politicians, since (oh my God!), he’s taunting all the spotless homeland-loving taxpayers, getting a living out his bad jokes about immigrants’ life of leisure. 

Even a very popular Italian tv show, Striscia la notizia, which always claimed to be the “voice of justice”, accused Bello Figo of “peopleism” (gentismo), since he got a lot of money out of honest people’s indignation (angry people are probably most of the viewers of his videos). “Maybe people who fight against crisis and high cost of living don’t feel like listening to your irony, don’t you think?” the justice-maker journalist asked the Ghanian artist, who now, apparently, is finally ready to exit the Youtube box and make concerts throughout Italy. Thank you, Italian sense of humour, you made him great, although your xenophobic mien is undoubtedly stronger than everything: just few hours ago (it’s January 20^th) I read that Bello Figo’s scheduled jig at Supersonic Music Club in Foligno (Perugia) has been cancelled  because of the countless amount of racist insults he got. And this is not the first time.

Source: http://www.supereva.it/bello-figo-striscia-mi-mantengono-italiani-non-sono-profugo-27944

The fact is: he’s not but singing all the bad jokes and myths created by media and politicians, who got money and power out of people’s silliness and vulgar instincts; the same silliness and instincts, I’d like to say, which took UK away from Europe. I want to ask you: since hordes of dumbasses get more and more angry when he shows (on purpose) an irksome behaviour, and given the fact he becomes more popular thanks to this indignation, why shouldn’t he be irksome? “Do you know we’re paying your rent with our money?” a sulking honest citizen asked Bello Figo during the above-mentioned show hosting Mussolini; he smiled with amusement, and his answer definitely deserves to be written in history books: “That’s okay the same to me”, which, of course, made all people surrounding him screaming more and more with shame and anger. That’s exactly the point: how can people not see the art of trolling, even when it clearly attacks people’s credulity?...


Bello Figo's most famous song, No pago affitto (I don’t pay rent), whose lyrics has been subbed in English in one of the Youtube videos, is probably the best summary of Italian prejudices. Featuring his (obviously black) friend The GynoZz, this song is vocal in declaring that immigrants don’t need to pay rent, nor to be worried about a house, a car, a job. “I won’t be a worker” Bello Figo proudly wrote in the lyrics, “I came here with my friends, and as soon as we arrive we get money, car, pussies.” What the shame! How can a black guy insult the honest Italian worker struggling to survive, and instigate young people to violence against women? “We want a salary and a broadband... I won’t soil my hands, because I’m already black.”

By mentioning the former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who doesn’t have anything to do with the immigrants' "absolute freedom", in this song Bello Figo managed to talk basically about every aspect of Italian narrow mentality in just one song; since the average citizen blames politicians about any problem, not being mature enough to take care about their own needs and questions, Bello Figo did exactly the same in No pago affitto, depicting the materialist laziness which lets people writing thousands of derogatory posts against the government without any cautious criteria.

Bello Figo is a sociologic, worthy of attention phenomenon. He sang (as I said before, maybe unconsciously or fulfilling someone else’s marketing plan) the decay of Western society, morbidly attached to money and banal commonplaces, by showing that people are always ready to hate but never ready for irony, or at least self irony; they’re too immature to laugh at their own silliness. He’s the mirror of the average wishes: sex, money, fame; more than that, he’s the mirror of leaders’ petty, xenophobic lies. Apart from his terrible pronunciation, his monotonous rhythm, his parodic clothes and accessories, this lucky artist gave us a lesson of seriousness; you need to be serious to be able to laugh.

If a coloured-hair guy singing jokes about prejudice is so frown upon that his jigs are cancelled, how should we feel about politicians spreading that prejudice? I think Italy, and not Italy only, cannot realize its priorities, and that Bello Figo definitely deserves all the money he got.

Source: http://www.repubblica.it/spettacoli/musica/2016/12/14/news/bello_figo-154103642/