Luca Neves was born in 1988 in the Roman hospital Regina Elena; his parents arrived in Italy from Cape Verde in the 1970s. He grew up in the area of Trigoria where he took part in rap battles and worked as an apprentice in restaurants while keeping up his fight for citizenship which he saw vanish into the labyrinthine corridors of Italian bureaucracy when he was 18. He opened an Instagram channel during lockdown, where he cooks Italo-Cape Verde specialities. But his basic ingredient is always ‘ius soli’, as he sings in the song Sono nato qua (I was born here), a song published recently featuring the rapper Amir Issaa: “Romano, italiano, nero. Tu non capisci, sono nato qua” (Roman, Italian, black. You don’t understand, I was born here)”.
From the islands of Cape Verde to the south of Rome
Just as we started the phone call there was a little problem that was quickly sorted out: he had to put the food in the fridge or it would be a disaster, Neves apologised. Once the chef in him had been reassured, he was able to start telling NRW his remarkable story. “I grew up in Trigoria, where the Roma football club trains. My father was a sailor, who had travelled the world and ended up in Anzio where he met my mother who was working as a home help in a family in our area. I am the third of four children but my older brother died after a case of medical malpractice which was never cleared up”. The poor functioning of the machine of state has been a source of persecution in Neves’ life. “He was only 22 and he was special, he had a talent for cartoons and he could do you a portrait in the time it takes to make a coffee. My parents didn’t want a postmortem. My mother said the big fish eats the little one”. He says that after he lost his brother he started to write a lot, first his thoughts, then song lyrics. “After studying hotel management, I did some work experience, starting with dish-washing and going on to become head chef. But all the while there has always been music.”
Being stateless
When he came of age. he started down the convoluted path necessary to request Italian citizenship which by law can only be granted to children of immigrants during the 18th year of age (even if they were born in Italy). After that deadline, no documents. “Italian bureaucracy is absurd. Just imagine for children of immigrants”.
I collected all the documents I could, from vaccination to nursery school certificates, where the teachers looked at me in amazement when I said that I really was being asked to provide these things. I did everything but unfortunately, I didn’t manage in time
“After the year in which you can apply, your birth certificate is worthless, you might as well throw it away”. They told him that he could no longer become an Italian citizen, he explains angrily, and he became stateless. He has a passport but he can’t use it to leave Italy, he can’t sign a contract or have a doctor on the national health service. For this reason, with support from his lawyer, he decided to appeal, refusing automatically the renewal of his right to stay. “Appeal after appeal, time passed and in the meantime I had to earn a living. For 14 years I worked illegally”.
Mango and chocolate, live on Instagram
But stealing is shameful, as his mother would say; she often comes up in the conversation with her pearls of wisdom, “Her name was Maria, but everyone knew her as Cristallina because of her bright, shining nature”. 2020 was a difficult year for everyone and Luca Neves was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. “I got to the point where I didn’t know how to pay the rent. Last Christmas my girlfriend suggested I should make some Cape Verde style panettoni and I tried a recipe with mango and chocolate, which worked well. I had a boom with lots of requests and ended up making 70 panettoni in a week. And that was with a broken oven door”. There is no lack of energy and creativity in Neves’ house and the pandemic crisis gave him the opportunity to launch himself into the world of live events on social media. “In my videos I make combination dishes from Cape Verde and Italy. For example ‘pastel alla marinara’: crunchy half-moons made with marinated fresh tuna, fried and served with a marinara sauce”.
The rap of the new generation of Italians
The chef-musician admits “Music saved me”, showing his fighting spirit. He believes that rappers should speak out about social issues, injustice and inequality. Tupac is always a role model and he mentions Ghali as one of the first on the Italian scene in recent years to give voice to the new generation of Italians. Then, naturally, he talks about his friend Amir Issaa. “We took part with him in a Vice TV documentary on racism in Italy and now we’ve recorded Sono nato qua (I was born here) together. I think it’s important for music to talk about real issues like ius soli, even for artists who don’t have first-hand experience of this problem. We are all brothers and sisters but then people forget”.
The 2020 amnesty
In 2020 we got the opportunity to apply for an amnesty for agricultural and care workers and Neves practically had no choice but to apply. “The situation is getting worrying and if I don’t want to come to a bad end, I have to apply for permission to stay. The idea is to get a temporary permit with a view to citizenship. It’s crazy that to give me this temporary document they wouldn’t accept a contract as a chef, which is my job, but then they took into consideration an application as a carer, and they’re evaluating it now”. While we hope that this amnesty will not turn out to be the nth flop of the Italian system for Neves, let’s reflect with him on how many people are still waiting for the documents which recognise their Italian citizenship. Let’s not stop thinking about it and remembering it because, as Cristallina used to say, the best weapon we have is our mind.
Translated by Anne Parry
