Italian culture shock, in the positive sense. There are some really good Italian cyberpunk rap/hip-hop/alternative albums. A cyberpunk renaissance.

Three of them, for me: Artificial Kid - Numero 47, Ronin Yaro - The Sprawl, and Nelav - Netrunner.

Who would have guessed? There aren’t that many cyberpunk rap/hip-hop/alternative albums in the world to begin with, and then somehow we find three of them here in Italy. Even after living here for almost a decade, it’s still not something hidden in plain sight. The cyberpunk aspect of Italy is really hidden. Not just hidden, hidden hidden. It’s not even the 47th thing you think of.

That said, I’ve had the honour of being a co-citizen with Bruce Sterling in Turin. My first PC was an Olivetti, born in Ivrea. I’ve shared coworking space with Arduino. And let’s not forget the Italian cyberpunk movie Nirvana. So there is something here. Something in the cyberspace.

What about these albums, then? I think I first discovered Artificial Kid - Numero 47 by chance, and then shortly after that Ronin Yaro - The Sprawl. Quite recently, when I started actively looking for more of this kind of thing, I found Nelav - Netrunner.

I think I would rank them in order of discovery. First Numero 47, because I’m a sucker for good sampling, especially when it pulls from films like Rollerball, Blade Runner, and A Scanner Darkly. Then we have The Sprawl, with Italy draped in a Neuromancer cloak. And finally Netrunner, which is good, but not something I come back to that often. So yes, Numero 47 is the one I usually put on while hacking away on my German (sorry) computer.