Among those studying, those working or those passing through, of Sardinians a Bologna there are. Many of them were under the stage last Saturday listening and dancing under the stage of the Botanical (the summer version of the Estragon Club) in the Gardens of via Filippo Re Train To Roots reggae musica group that has been on the scene for 20 years and whose members are all of Sardinian origin, specifically from the Sassari area. But the concert was not just attended by people from Sardinia who live in the Emilia-Romagna capital. There were also many lovers of Jamaican reggae music with engaging and fun lyrics sung in Italian, English and Sardinian, of which Train To Roots have been an example since 2004.
In the cool of the Gardens of Via Filippo Re, after Italy’s exit from the European Championships and on the eve of the Tour de France passing through Bologna, the audience, between one beer and another bought at the kiosks of the BOtanique, was able to listen again and dance to the songs that Train To Roots have been bringing around Italy for a few years now with their frontman Simone “Bujumannu” Pireddu.
Among these, their hits “Smoke Weeda” stand out, or “Denaro” from 2019 or even among the latest “Fermire il tempo” and the new “Sardinia”. The latter, sung in Sardinian – with subtitles in the video – is a reggae-ska ballad with a “cheerful” arrangement, in contrast with a very serious and committed text. It underlines how Sardinia is seen and considered as a place to spend those two summer weeks on holiday for the splendid sea and luxury holidays. «But almost none of them know the problems of this Mediterranean paradise. Hence the need to talk about it in a song that, in an almost ironic way, invites the listener to take a tour with the band in places where the exploitation of the territory, the landscape and also the local workforce for decades if not for centuries, as in the case of the abandoned mines of Sulcis Iglesiente, it has left indelible traces in the physiognomy of the island and in the lives of the Sardinians”, we read in the caption of the video.
