Ciccio Merolla

“Curious CD “KOKORO” by Ciccio Merolla the Neapolitan percussionist already whit Gragnaniello and Senese, this time he let go even rap song (this way he did in the V7s with Lucariello) and he creates an album that is tribal, sacred and ruthless.” - Gianni Valentino

“(…) It’s not just rap, it’s not only hip hop, in this job we find contaminations from a different musical kind. Tribal rhythms of the Middle East, of the South America, an evolved dub toward more rhythms percussive, are joined together like a painting on a white cloth. In this painting, Merolla is a painter, and tells about his city and he rise against the stereotype of a Naples as a cruel and dangerous city. This is an album to be listened very well, for the contents and the messages that he proposed to communicate, and for the originality and the musical mastery with which it was designed and packaged.” - Giulia Nizzi

“Francesco Merolla is Napolitan, it’s not a little boy (it’s around the music scene from the end of the years ’80) he’s a percussionist with international rewarded he has already signed a soloist album Nun Pressa o Sole in 2004 (…) Hypnotic rhythms, texture enveloping and texts devoted to the social protest(…) a validly rap in the city slang. The feeling of the “déjà vù” it’s anyway compensated by the undeniable substance of song writer and music processing. As well from the strong and proud conviction that come from these thirty seven minutes of sounds, colours, messages especially of groove.” - Federico Guglielmi

“Contagious and pulsating, the album of Merolla, bring back to the Naples crossroad of culture and rhythms: rap, hi hop and funk are mixed whit the sounds of Middle East and south America, creating a unique and personal musical mixture(…) Again Naples it’s a forge of talents and Merolla he’s the evident test of it.” - Andrea Di Renzo

“ Active for almost 20 years, after the debut with the Panoramics he’s become a music session respect the purcussion for half, and more than half, of the napolitan scene :Bennato, Senese, Zurzolo, also and above Gragnaniello. In 2000 a collaboration that eight years later is even more significant:with La Famiglia, the best hip hop project ever baked in Naples (and one of the best ever). Merolla meets the rap, and the matter he likes very much.” - Federico Guglielmi

"The intimate and profound sound research approached from Merolla In KOKORO is not only returns a inattentive country to bulk cultural roots but puts back against the wall as too long stay away from their duties of citizens. Aggio acciso a Berlusconi, true anthem to free the country from dangerous spiral of indifference in wich he cost the king of television, and Cash, with the partecipation of Lucariello, are other two fundamental pieces that will complement a sound very impressive" - Matteo Ceschi