Italian rapper Fedez apologizes for lyrics targeting Jannik Sinner after being accused of racism

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MILAN (AP) — Italian rapper Fedez has apologized for publishing musical lyrics saying that tennis player Jannik Sinner speaks with “Adolf Hitler’s accent,” which prompted the musician to be accused of inciting racial hatred.

Fedez recently posted an Instagram story featuring lyrics of a new song that said in Italian: “Italian has a new idol named Jannik Sinner. Pure-blooded Italian with Adolf Hitler’s accent.”

A city council member in Bolzano — the capital of the German-speaking autonomous province of Alto Adige in northern Italy where Sinner is from — on Thursday filed a formal complaint with prosecutors over Fedez’s lyrics based on an article in Italy’s penal code that sanctions incitement of racial hatred and propaganda.

“I wanted to take a paradox and it came off terribly, about athletes who are born and raised in Italy but often are not considered Italian due to the color of their skin and apply it to Italy’s top athlete,” Fedez said during a concert in Milan on Friday, according to the Gazzetta dello Sport.

“I wasn’t able to pull it off and all I can do is apologize,” Fedez added. “If something like this isn’t understood, it’s because of a mistake made by whoever wrote it. So I take responsibility.”

The reference to “pure-blooded Italian” recalls Italian fascist propaganda from the 1930s, according to Giuseppe Martucci, the city council member, who added that the reference to Hitler was unacceptable.

“I felt it my duty to act and hold up the founding values of our constitution,” Martucci said. “We can’t allow language the evokes racism and hate to be normalized by public figures.”

By winning four Grand Slam titles over the last two years, Sinner has exceeded Italy’s soccer stars to become the country’s most popular athlete. He lost the U.S. Open final to Carlos Alcaraz this month and lost the No. 1 ranking to his Spanish rival.

This is not the first time that Sinner has faced an underlying sentiment that he isn’t fully Italian.

Before he won his first Grand Slam title and opted not to play Davis Cup for Italy in September 2023 — saying he hadn’t recovered in time from tournaments in North America — he was widely criticized.

“Caso Nazionale” (National Issue), said the front-page of Sportweek, the Gazzetta dello Sport’s weekly magazine, in a headline with a double meaning.

Then when Sinner won his first Grand Slam title at the 2024 Australian Open, he was treated as a national hero on his return home and met with Premier Giorgia Meloni at the Chigi Palace.

Sinner and Meloni posed for photos as they held aloft together first the Australian Open trophy and then the Italian flag. Sinner then gave Meloni a warm embrace to end the meeting.

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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis