“I’m not Celine Dion”. Let’s say we’ve been aware of it for a while now, but Fedez did well to reiterate it after his latest blunder on Saturday night during a live show in Sicily, when he botched “Sexy Shop” from start to finish. The outrage went viral on social media along with the video of his poor performance, forcing the rapper to make an explanatory video the next day. “I sang about myself***” he admitted with great humility – a quality he usually doesn’t have – clarifying that it was a “technical error”. Our thoughts immediately go to his ex-wife’s infamous “communication error”, but in this case it’s not a clumsy justification. Fedez’s out of tune was really the fault of the autotune set to a harmonic scale different from the song’s key, as he candidly explained.

No “communication error”

For 24 hours Italy has been discovering that it is full of autotune experts who talk about autotune without knowing how it works. Here is a quick clarification for the few others who surrender to silence, giving up the controversy of the day: if you are singing in C, the autotune is set to C and if the singer hits a note outside that scale, the autotune moves it to the selected C scale. The result, in this case, is that it is difficult to sing out of tune. If instead you are singing in C but the selected scale is D, the autotune takes the singer to the D scale even if the base travels in C. Practically like any karaoke with the song that starts a key above or below that of the amateur but excited performer. Disastrous result, as happened to Fedez. The rush to be indignant, however, fueling the usual game of massacre, is stronger than any notion of music.

Fedez does Fedez

The fact that Fedez doesn’t have a beautiful voice is another matter, as is the fact that he is certainly not an artist full of technique and looking for virtuosity to show off, but the blunder of the other night was not needed to realize it and cry scandal, trying to arm a crusade in the name of good music that on social media will barely last a turn of Sol. Indeed, the time of the next hit to share between Instagram stories or in videos on TikTok. Fedez does Fedez. And if in recent years he has done it almost exclusively on social media, apart from a few outbursts at Sanremo that cost him his first serious crisis with Chiara Ferragni, now he has returned to do it on stage, ‘in music’, partly thanks to his newfound nature as a rapper from Rozzano – suffocated for too long by the various ‘fitcheks’ and ‘experiences’ that must be done to avoid ending up sleeping on the sofa – and partly the need to make money and get back on his feet on his own after the collapse of the Ferragnez empire, a reason that this summer led him to also attend patron saint festivals in remote places and not just the coolest evenings to show off on social media, at Twiga or Billionaire.

Provocations, irreverent jokes, digs at his ex-wife in this or that verse – only to then absolve himself by placing the blame on the colleague who made the rhyme – and that “how the fuck does he do it” shouted at the audience, in perfect vocalist style from the early 2000s, to sing along with the various catchphrases churned out. A variety show disguised as rap rather than a concert, and those who go to see it go exactly for this, to see one of the most controversial and talked about characters of the moment live, to feel in some way part of the narration, certainly not to be surprised by a high note. In short, realizing today that Fedez can’t sing and making a controversy out of it is like wanting Magalli to be president of the Republic. A rant that is an end in itself. Even the songs are what they are, sampler pieces born with all the characteristics of modern hits, destined in most cases to run out in a couple of months at most, supplanted by other crowded feat. It’s today’s music market, also made up of autotune – precisely – and rappers and trappers far from a De Gregori, who could easily afford to sing “La donna cannone” out of tune.

THE TECHNICAL PROBLEM IS THAT YOU CAN’T SING! THE TECHNICAL PROBLEM IS THAT YOU ARE NOT AN ARTIST, BUT A P0MPED BUFF0NE! #fedez #autotune pic.twitter.com/EeEc9V89QV

— Andy Respiggi (@AndyRespiggi) September 8, 2024