This article is published in issue 20 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 14 May 2024.
Naples we all have a secret. Every alley, every building, every wall holds its mysteries. There is the secret of Munaciello, the beautiful ‘mbriana, the blood of San Gennaro, the Pedamentina, the mermaid Partenope, the Egg under the Castle, the secret of Pulcinella… and then there is my secret”.
Speaking in Neapolitan dialect is Set freethe hooded singer appeared out of nowhere on February 14, 2017 on YouTube with a song titled May ninth, and has since become a phenomenon. His songs exceed 80 million streams, the live performances in which he never shows his face are cult from the Maradona stadium in Naples to the Kesselhaus in Berlin, passing through the San Siro Hippodrome.
Liberato is like Elena Ferrante: theories about his identity multiply, but none are ever certain. His alter ego is now drawing a portrait of him: the director Francesco Lettieri, also Neapolitan, born in 1985, author of Liberato’s most famous video clips which contributed to changing the visual imagination of Naples and making his music hypermodern and traditional at the same time. His movie Liberato’s secret, with the voices of the rapper himself, Simona Tabasco and Nando Paone, arrives at the cinema from May 9th and is a documentary that is not a documentary and an animated film that is not just an animated film. And – spoiler – it does not aim to reveal the singer’s face. Because the more Liberato hides his identity, the more he merges with his city, Naples. Lettieri knows his secret well and enjoys feeding it. During the entire duration of this interview – he claims – Liberato is sitting at his side, they are finishing the editing of the film: «I had thought about having him answer the phone», explains Lettieri, «but he told me he wasn’t sure know all the answers.”
Francesco Lettieri and Giorgio Testi
So let’s start with an easy question: the story it tells in Liberato’s secret is it his real story or not?
«As in all true stories there is always a limit between reality and fiction, a limit which here is very labile because no one knows the truth. I can say that, beyond the details, everything that makes Liberato what he is today is present in this documentary.”
The animation part tells of a boy struggling with his first dreams and his first love.
«The female protagonist, a future Italian manga author, is Liberato’s first true love, which also coincides with his first great friendship, with his first great disappointment. All feelings that we find in her songs. The two boys attend a high school that is very reminiscent of the one in Piazza del Gesù, the Genovesi. And the part where I talk about my first contact with him is also true. Liberato, in 2017, sent me an anonymous text message, he had seen my videos and wanted me to shoot the one May ninth. We hit it off straight away.”
Who is Liberated for her?
«A project that changed my life, and personally it is also a friend».
And who is Liberato for Naples?
«It’s one of its many faces. At the moment there are many Neapolitan artists who are establishing themselves nationally and internationally, such as Geolier and Nu Genea, and Liberato embodies the most mysterious face of the city. One of the most interesting aspects of him is that he brings together popular music and hip pop, house and r & b.
He experiments a lot and, despite this, his audience includes all segments of the population. During the casting for his video clips I met kids who came from Vomero, Rione Traiano or Sanità”.
What are the places in Liberato’s Naples that we find in the film?
«His journey certainly begins in Materdei, there we shot the first scenes of the video May ninth. I am very attached to that neighborhood because my grandmother lived there, I spent my childhood there. You cannot miss Marechiaro in Posillipo, and Piazza Mercato. Mercato is one of those neighborhoods of popular Naples that today has remained uncontaminated, unlike Quartieri Spagnoli and Sanità which have become very touristy. Liberato’s music also includes the most ancient Naples, that of the noble palaces of the eighteenth century such as Palazzo Reale in Piazza del Plebiscito”.
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