For those of you who don’t know Italian pop star Tiziano Ferro from his infamous Mexican moustache comment, few Italian pop hipsters know the wrath of the Latin American market like Tiziano does (just ask the myriad paparazzi that made millions selling photoshopped pictures of Tiziano with a moustache to Univisión).
In an effort to avoid the controversy, however, Tiziano might be treading dangerously close to riling up the protest-prone Cuban exile community in the US.
In his new single, “E Raffaela é Mia” (“And Raffaella is Mine”), Ferro croons, “Ho girato il Latin America: Cuba, Messico, Argentina”- “I have traveled all Latin America: Cuba, Mexico, Argentina”. An Italian visa, of course, could get you onto the starved island with no problem, unlike the blue passports in most of our pockets. But this ease in tanning on the shores of the world’s best beaches translates smoothly into support for the deaths of thousands of political prisoners under Castro’s yoke- especially from the perspective of most of the population of Miami.
Tiziano apparently knows this, as, in the Spanish version, he adapts his itenerary: “He viajado todo el mundo: España, Mexico, Argentina” (“I have traveled all the world: Spain, Mexico, Argentina”).
Hmm, trying to hide something, Tiziano? Between this and naming your debut album “Relative Red” (“Rosso Relativo”), something smells fishy.