"Papa Nero" is a song by the Venetian

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 band Pitura Freska

Pitura Freska

Pitura Freska was a reggae music group based in Venice, Italy, consisting of "Sir" Oliver Skardy , Francesco Duse, Cristiano Verardo, Marco Forieri, and Valerio Silvestri...

, with lyrics in the Venetian language

Venetian language

Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...

.

It was performed at the 1997 Sanremo Music Festival, and became very popular throughout Italy. It is notable for being one of the very few songs (if not the only song) in Venetian that got significant media exposure outside the Veneto

Veneto

Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

 region.

The lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

 are inspired on a prediction by Nostradamus

Nostradamus

Michel de Nostredame , usually Latinised to Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties , the first edition of which appeared in 1555...

 that the next-to-last Pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

 will come from Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. They can be read as a light-hearted anti-racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 and anti-xenophobic

Xenophobia

Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...

 message. Some famous verses were:

	[...]		[...]
	Perchè xe scrito, dito, stradito, dai oracołi		"Since it's written, said, confirmed, by the oracle Oracle In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination.... s
	La piovra perderà i tentacołi		The octopus Octopus The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...  will lose its tentacle Tentacle A tentacle or bothrium is one of usually two or more elongated flexible organs present in animals, especially invertebrates. The term may also refer to the hairs of the leaves of some insectivorous plants. Usually, tentacles are used for feeding, feeling and grasping. Anatomically, they work like... s
	E cascarà i tabù col penultimo Gesù		And the taboo Taboo A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society... s will crumble with the next-to-last Jesus Jesus Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
	E el sarà un omo dal continente nero		And he will be a man from the Black Continent Africa Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
	Sarà vero?		Could it be true?
	Dopo Miss Italia aver un Papa nero?		After Miss Italy Miss Italia Miss Italia is the name of a beauty pageant awarding prizes every year to young, female contestants from Italy. Since the first edition of the contest in 1939 many of the contestants have gone on to notable careers in television and film.-History:... , shall we have a black Pope?
	No me par vero		It's hard to believe
	Un Papa nero		A black Pope
	che scolta łe me canson in venessian		who listens to my songs in Venetian
	Perché el xe nero african		Because he is black African"

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