Italian rapper Fedez has issued an apology after facing accusations of inciting racial hatred for lyrics that controversially likened tennis player Jannik Sinner's accent to that of Adolf Hitler.
The musician recently shared an Instagram story featuring the contentious lines, which stated in Italian: "Italian has a new idol named Jannik Sinner. Pure-blooded Italian with Adolf Hitler’s accent."
This prompted a city council member in Bolzano, the capital of Alto Adige – Sinner's German-speaking home province in northern Italy – to lodge a formal complaint with prosecutors on Thursday. The complaint cites an article in Italy’s penal code concerning the 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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