Neomelodica Music: Formal, Informal and Criminal Dimensions of Naples' Marginalised Entertainment Industry

Abstract

Neapolitan neomelodica music is popular among listeners in Southern Italy and abroad. Its contents and aesthetic qualities are depicted as a sign of cultural degradation or as an expression of the criminal culture characterising, as the cliché would have it, Naples' marginalised underclass. The dominant paradigm in journalistic and criminological analyses describes its scene as mostly unprofessional and largely embedded in a mafia-run entertainment circuit through which Camorra members reinforce their popular consensus and economic domination over local communities. The aim of this article is to deconstruct this dominant view by using an ethnographic approach to analyse several case studies of neomelodica music. The pre-existing literature mostly criticises moral and cultural aspects of the phenomenon, while the public debate tends to misinterpretate and underestimate the real dimensions of neomelodica music as a professionally organised and structured cultural business. The unrecognised status of neomelodica music complicates a more articulated view of its political-economic modes of functioning and on the role played by dominant criminal actors in the field. This article concludes that, rather than being a product of an endogenous degenerate local political economy, the informal and illicit aspects of the neomelodica business can be read as the consequence of its marginalisation in the Italian cultural landscape and entertainment industry.The aim of this article is to deconstruct this dominant view by using an ethnographic approach to analyse several case studies of neomelodica music. The pre-existing literature mostly criticises moral and cultural aspects of the phenomenon, while the public debate tends to misinterpretate and underestimate the real dimensions of neomelodica music as a professionally organised and structured cultural business. The unrecognised status of neomelodica music complicates a more articulated view of its political-economic modes of functioning and on the role played by dominant criminal actors in the field. This article concludes that, rather than being a product of an endogenous degenerate local political economy, the informal and illicit aspects of the neomelodica business can be read as the consequence of its marginalisation in the Italian cultural landscape and entertainment industry. ; Peer reviewed