Article: Record Turnout For Italy's Voters; Rap Album Parodies Politicians' Pat Promises

Rap has a foothold in Italy, and on any given day radio listeners can hear performances by such rhythmic luminaries as Ice-T, 2 Live Crew, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi? Italy's media millionaire and former prime minister is a rapper? Well, sort of.

He is the involuntary star of a satirical rap-soul-funk album called "Par Condicio," a bitter condemnation of the state of Italian politics. Berlusconi's words, taped from TV by the album's creators, have been set to music along with a chorus of numerous other politicians as they pledge, pontificate, hurl insults at each other, deny wrongdoing and more often than not just babble.

It is an album that catches a ...

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