When Tommy Cash, a rapper and singer from Estonia, won his country’s Eurovision selection with “Espresso Macchiato,” he barely had time to celebrate before a backlash began.
In the song, Cash sings in a cheesy Italian accent that he is “sweating like a Mafioso” from working so hard, and just wants a coffee. “Me like mi coffee,” he says: “Very importante.”
Cash’s riff on Italian clichés did not go down well in some parts of Italy. Gian Marco Centinaio, a lawmaker with Italy’s far-right League Party, posted on Instagram that Eurovision should ban the song. “Is this the idea of European brotherhood that the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest have in mind?” he wrote.
The flap also made headlines because Codacons, an Italian consumer rights organization, complained that the song “conveys a message of a population tied to organized crime.”
In a recent interview, Cash said that he found the reaction over the top. He hadn’t meant to insult Italians, he said: “I love Italy. I love the people. I’m drawn to them because they’re so passionate.”
In earlier songs, he rapped in English with his own heavy Eastern European accent, he said, and he also made a track with a German-accented chorus. His comedic Italian voice in “Espresso Macchiato” was no different than those, he said.
Cash — who has made several tracks with Charli XCX — has many fans in Europe who love his left-field vibe and provocative videos, but he’s never been close to a household name. But in Italy, at least, he is now a star. Cash said that he had performed on Italian TV many times since “Espresso Macchiato” blew up. On a recent trip to Milan, he added, fans chased him down the street.
He had a simple message for anyone who still felt insulted. “Drink a coffee,” he said: “Chill!”
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London.
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