Odes to Crime

Ranging from Mexican narcocorridos to the ritual tarantella of the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta to the radical-right German music scene, criminal subcultures display a diverse musical aesthetic. Criminal activities are lauded and the frightening life of these subcultures is depicted in their music. In the public sphere, these genres are subject to bans or taboos, but they are listened to and enthusiastically consumed nonetheless.

How are these songs produced in, as well as outside, prison? Are there aesthetic standards, is there an immanent critique? What power and social relationships are candidly related here? Are there double agents who leave the court of the criminal subculture and its oligarchs to make music in the mainstream?

Peter Ohlendorf (film-maker, Munich)

Francesco Sbano (author, Calabria)

Moderated by Christoph Twickel (journalist, Hamburg)