in the fourth programme of this year’s summer series, Silvia Cesari gives an outline of the major authors of the Italian Rap of the 2000’s. A common tread in their songs is the authors’ experience of growing up in the suburbia, of going through difficult personal experiences, and feeling as if their life is losing meaning – in spite of the commercial success of their songs. We play: Fabri Fibra (Momenti no), Mondo Marcio (01-08-1997), Marracash (Bastavano le briciole), Fedez (Faccio brutto), and Emis Killa (Parole di ghiaccio).

There is social satire in: Il Supercafone (by Piotta, from Rome), Ga el SUV (by DJ Ice, from Milan), Rime Patate e Cozze (by the Bari Jungle Brothers). There is also the search for the local culture and language in: Le redici ca tieni (by the Sud Sound System, from Lecce in Apulia), and Su Sardu Alfabetu (by Dr. Drer & CRC Posse, from Sardinia).

We explore the Italian Rap in the ‘90s and early in the new century, in its two lines of hard and ironic social message. We play: Ohi Maria, and La fidanzata (by Articolo 31), Cani sciolti (by Neffa of Sangue Misto), and Fabri Fibra: Non dimentico, from Sindrome di fine millennio.

The first programme of this year’s summer series, Silvia Cesari explains the role of Rap music in the landscape of Hip-Hop, and how the Italian rappers moved from the English language to rapping in Italian. We play: Get Down (by Radical Stuff), Peggio della colla (by Raptus), La mia moto (by Jovanotti), and La scuola rap (Zecchino d’Oro).

Recently appointed Italian Ambassador, Mr Fabrizio Marcelli, talks of his career in various parts of the world, including being Ambassador in war-torn Somalia

Silvia Maggioni and Dale Wang are organizing a virtual journey visiting the ancient Rome, listening to the words of Julius Caesar, reading some of Aesop’s fairy tales in Latin.

Marco is a professor of Italian language and literature at Victoria University, and in this program (the second dedicated to Umberto Eco - the Italian novelist, medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, and literary critic) he reads a poem he wrote on Eco, and recalls some funny moments shared with Eco

The first programme of two, dedicated to Umberto Eco, an Italian novelist, medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, and literary critic, who died on the 19th of February 2016. Many of you have read books like The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and The Island of the Day Before. To pay homage to the man and to his legacy, I invited Marco Sonzogni, professor of Italian language and literature at Victoria University in Wellington. He is obviously well acquainted with Eco’s work in the arcane field of semiotics, and all of his literary production. Also Marco had known Eco for many years, and had with Eco a steady exchange of views. This is Marco’s testimony, accompanied by music by Nino Rota, recorded by Francesco D’Orazio and Giampaolo Nuti: The Legend of the Glass Mountain, and A Sentimental Devil. http://plainsfm.org.nz is where you can find all recent programmes in podcast. Buon Ascolto from the producer Wilma Laryn

With pianist David Kelly and Horomoana Horo, playing traditional Maori instruments. It’s all contemporary pieces exploring new resonance. The CD is published by Atoll.

Anthropologist, journalist and retired university professor Battista Saiu is on a mission from the Regione Sarda to help establish Circoli Sardi (Clubs of Sardinian emigrants) in New Zealand, as well as Australia, China and Japan. We talk about ritual aspects of food in historical cultures and in the present times.