"Enough, I will no longer sing in Sardinian." Luca Espa, a 28-year-old from Quartu, wants to be a singer in life. And like many others, he seeks the path to success through social media. He has had some satisfaction: he transformed "I want you it that way" by the Backstreet Boys into "D'ollu d'iaici", with a video made in the gardens near via Fiume in Quartu.
Regardless of the merit of the choice and stylistic judgments, it achieved 1.2 million views. Surpassed, however, by a version, also in Sardinian, of a passage from Frozen: 1.3 million views. Two products that fit into an “identity” trend inaugurated in April.
But there was a problem: many wrote to him that his "is not true Sardinian". And the young artist made a catalogue of these positions, according to which the variant of Cagliari (or Quartu) does not respect the canons of pure Sardinian limba. A classic that is renewed when points of view are faced between the capital and the rest of the Island, from Monastir (or a little further north) onwards.
Luca Espa could have overlooked it. Whether to spark a debate, or out of real conviction, today he made an announcement: “The time has come. The time to have my say,” he wrote, “The time for everyone to unite. Because there are no differences between people who love the same land, the same translations and the same flag. We are all “Unmistakably Sardinian”.”
Hence the title of his new piece: sung, this time, in Italian. A piece that may please. Or not. But it is certainly not in Sardinian.
(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)