Italy has always been a great musical container, made of artists and endless movements. Naples, however, is something more, it’s a state of mind, an approach to life, a way of living that you carry inside, in your own language and expressions.

Raffaele Arcella, known as Whodamanny, is one of the leaders of the new Neapolitan electronic school. Together with artists such as Nu Guinea, Mystic Jungle and Milord, he has collected the legacy of funk, boogie, italo-disco and jazz-funk of Neapolitan musicians such as Pino Daniele, Tony Esposito, James Senese and Napoli Centrale.

Whodamanny at Tropical Animals – Florence

Soundwall described him as “a huge fan of the warm and vintage sound that comes out of drum machines and synths he plays everyday, creating music that cannot be catalogued, full of cosmic synths, funk and jazz” Starting from the fantasy of the 70s and 80s, which will forever mark Neapolitan music, Whodamanny reinterprets Neapolitan disco and funkthrough the new instrumentation and influences that have contaminated the city in the meantime, first of all techno and electronics of the early 2000s.

Key element of Periodica Records fonded by Dario Di Pace, with his basslines, arpeggios and scratchy drum machines he contributes to revive the sounds of those years, breaking down the boundaries between genres both in his productions and on the dancefloor, and showing the progressive awakening of the city of Naples in recent years.
In 2014, together with the already mentioned Milord (Enrico Fierro, outside music) he founded The Normalmen. In antithesis to their stage name, their style is far from normal: in their DJ sets there is a mix of disco, Italian rarities and acid house, in a continuous stream of emotions that hardly tire those who are lucky enough to attend one of their performances.

Whodamanny & Milord at Danger Zone – Naples

The Normalmen are also part of the magical band Mystic Jungle Tribe – together with Mystic Jungle, Dario Di Pace – and they are the stars of a new attitude to that Mediterranean and exotic sound that is an essential ingredient of each of his projects.

Whodamanny & Like Someone at OVERSIZEit

In the playlist he offers this week we let ourselves be carried away in his world by a selection of tunes made exclusively at West Hill Studio and released on Periodica Records.
Enjoy!