The power of music and artistic exchange erase the 4200 miles that separate Salerno and Montreal in a collaboration masterminded by Roberto Forlano (O’Disc, O’Live produzioni). The Salifornian funk collective Banda Maje have injected the colours and spirit of the Italian South into “Wait For Me”, a disco-funk song from Canadian multi-instrumentalist Franky Selector’s Never Better, an album that last spring was fully rearranged by Italian artists, including Banda Maje, and released digitally as Italians do it (Never) Better.

As Banda Maje’s co-founder Peppe Maiellano explains, “The original song has a lot in common with our sound, so we didn’t feel there was much we needed to change musically. Rather, we came up with this kind of crazy idea of making Neapolitan the main focus of our re-edit, but trying to remain as close as possible to the meaning and rhythm of the original lyrics. Which was kind of something they used to do in the past here, you know, during the golden age of Italian pop music, when so many of our artist made covers of big international hits.”

That is how Wait for me, I’m on my way became Aspiettame, nun me fa murì (i.e., wait for me, don’t make me die [for you]), with those infectious backing vocals by the “Majettes” (Chiara della Monica and Cristina Cafiero), and with Franky Selector himself singing in Neapolitan. Four Flies just couldn’t fail to release the re-edit on 7 inch, with the full vocal version on side A and the instrumental track on side B.

Joy, funk and Salifornian energy bring Italy and Canada closer than ever. Infectious groove has no boundaries!