Look up mai or Mai in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Mai may refer to:

Given name[link]

• Mai (Arabic name), an Arabic female name
• Mai or Maj, a Swedish female name (from Maja, a nickname for Maria, see Mary (given name))
• Mai, a female Vietnamese name
• Mai, the title of Sayfawa dynasty kings of Chad
• Mai, Old French for Maia, the Italic goddess of spring, the daughter of Faunus, and wife of Vulcan
• Omai, also known as Mai, the first person from the Pacific Islands to visit Europe
• Mai Charoenpura, a Thai pop singer from Bangkok
• Mai Kadowaki, a Japanese seiyū
• Mai Hoshimura (born 1981), a J-pop singer under the Sony Music Japan label
• Mai Hagiwara (born 1996), a J-pop singer under Hello! Project and a member of C-ute
• Mai (singer) (born 1984), formerly known as Ruppina, J-Pop singer
• Mai Kuraki (born 1982), a J-pop singer
• Mai Matsumuro, (born 1983), a Japanese singer, composer and a former member of J-pop band "Dream"
• Mai Safoora, (died 1795), a Sufi Saint and mother of Saleh muhammad safoori
• Mai Yamada, Japanese actress
• Mai Yamane, (born 1958), a Japanese English-language blues singer
• Mai Zetterling, Swedish actress and film director

Surname[link]

• Mai (Chinese surname), the Chinese surname 麥 (simplified 麦), pronounced Mak in Cantonese
• Mai (Chữ Nôm: 梅), the Vietnamese pronuciation of Mei (surname)
• Jeannie Mai, American makeup artist, fashion expert, actress, and TV personality

Fictional characters[link]

• Mai, a supporting character from the television show Avatar: The Last Airbender
• Mai, one of Pilaf's henchmen in Dragon Ball
• Mai, a main character from the anime and eroge game in Popotan
• Mai Kawasumi, a character from the visual novel, anime, and manga in Kanon
• Mai Kuju, from Mai the Psychic Girl, a 1985 manga
• Mai Mishō, co-protagonist of Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star
• Mai Shiranui, a character in The King of Fighters series of video games
• Mai Taniyama, a character in the anime and manga Ghost Hunt
• Mai Tokiha, the title character in the anime and manga My-HiME (originally Mai-HiME), and a supporting character in My-Otome
• Mai Tsubasa (aka Change Phoenix, a character in Dengeki Sentai Changeman
• Mai Valentine (Mai Kujaku in the Japanese version), a character from the anime Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

Other uses[link]

• Mai, Non Sung, Thailand
• Mai (Papua New Guinea)
• Mai (song), a song by Josh Groban from the album Awake Live
• Mai, a mother goddess in Siberian mythology, mostly among Turkish Siberians
• The translation of the month May in several European and other languages
• The Mai (The Nine Lives of Chloe King) sworn protectors of the human race not quite human not quite god but descendants of an ancient race with cat like powers.

Acronym[link]

• Machine augmented intelligence, the use of technology to amplify and empower human thought and consciousness
• Maithili language ISO 639 code
• Marine Accident Investigation, the Investigation of Ship relating accidents
• Market for Alternative Investment, a stock market for SMEs in Thailand
• Mean annual increment, a measure of the average growth per year a tree or stand of trees has exhibited at a specified age
• Member of the Appraisal Institute, a degree requiring ascending levels of tests
• Ministério da Administração Interna, the Ministry of Interior (Portugal)
• Ministerul Administraţiei şi internelor, the Ministry of Administration and Interior (Romania)
• Moscow Aviation Institute, an engineering an aviation academy in Russia
• Motorsports Association of India, the FIA arm of Indian Motorsports
• Multilateral Agreement on Investment, a treaty negotiated between members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) between 1995 and 1998
• Multiple Access Interference, a type of interference that occurs in Code division multiple access (CDMA) systems
• Myanmar Airways International, an airline from Myanmar (Burma)
• Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare infection, a mycobacterial infection which typically occurs in immunosuppressed patients, such as those in the late stages of AIDS

Mai-may in german

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Mai Shiranui (不知火 舞, Shiranui Mai^?) is a player character in both the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters series of fighting games by SNK and in related media, also appearing in a large number of other games. Since her first appearance in 1992, Mai has been converted into and recognized as the main sex symbol of SNK, becoming one of the most popular female characters of video gaming in general.

Mai Shiranui is the granddaughter of Hanzo Shiranui, the now-deceased master of ninjitsu and an art of Shiranui-ryū ninja hand-to-hand combat called koppo-ken. In her mind, Andy Bogard, who studied Shiranui ninjutsu with her grandfather since their early teens, is her fiancé; the relationship between the two is often ambiguous (usually on the part of Andy). Mai has also studied at her grandfather's friend, the judo master Jubei Yamada. She uses a closed fan while fighting and is able to create and control fire ("Shiranui" is the Japanese name for will-o'-the-wisp).

Character design[link]

Prior to the creation of Mai for Fatal Fury 2, the Fatal Fury series would feature a male ninja master using the fighting style that she would use. Later, the SNK staff changed their focus to including an idol character into the series, and they decided to replace him with Mai. Inspiration for Mai's physical appearance and attributes were culled from a variety of sources. According to the official Neo Geo publication Neo Geo Freak, her breasts were modeled after Fumie Hosokawa and her buttocks were modeled after Ai Iijima (both women were famous Japanese gravure idols during the creation of the Fatal Fury series).^[3] The characteristic "jiggle" effect of Mai's breasts was inspired by tales of kunoichi (female ninja) who supposedly used seduction to catch enemies off guard.^[4] Due to censorship, Mai's chest motions were stilled in the international home version of The King of Fighters '94^[5] as well as in the UK version of '95 for the Sega Saturn.^[6]

Mai's basic look changes only slightly through most of the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters games. She has long brown hair (however, in some official art she has red) with long bangs framing the sides of her face, tied up in a thick, long ponytail which flows behind her back. Her costume is usually a sleeveless, skimpy red outfit or tunic. The costume is held at her waist by a decorative waistband, often with long, trailing decorative tails, leading down to a loincloth with a thong underneath (or mini-shorts in the US version). Her footwear for Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special (1993) and The King of Fighters games is a pair of soft-soled tabi. From Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory onwards into Real Bout Fatal Fury (both in 1995), she wears instep guards that leave her heels and the front parts of her feet exposed. In Fatal Fury 3, she also wore a red vest (which was abandoned later on) and a heavier eye shadow. Mai has been subject to much regional censoring and her famous breast bouncing animation was removed in the North American versions of Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special and The King of Fighters 2002.

In The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact (2004), her alternate costumes portray her with very short, boyish hair and ninja outfits that resemble that of Kasumi from the Dead or Alive series. In KOF: Maximum Impact 2 (2006), one of Mai's second outfit color schemes is exactly Andy Bogard's standard palette, even giving Mai blonde hair. Another of her outfits bears a resemblance to the character Lum Invader from the manga and anime series Urusei Yatsura (long green hair, clothes sporting tiger prints, and her hairpin even makes it look like she had small horns). This costume is also considered to be a cosplay of Cham Cham from SNK's Samurai Showdown series. The Maximum Impact series' producer, Falcoon, stated that designing Mai's alternate design was one of the ones he felt "unforgivable", as he felt unsure of fans' reaction to the change.^[7] Shinkiro, an illustrator from The King of Fighters, commented that Mai was the most difficult to draw since he "thought she was going to burst out of her costume", making the series less recommended for children.^[8]

In video games[link]

[edit] Fatal Fury

Mai stars in Fatal Fury 2 to assist Andy Bogard, with whom she is in love, into facing the new host of The King of Fighters tournament, Wolfgang Krauser. She also plays a supporting role in Fatal Fury 3 and Real Bout Fatal Fury into fighting Geese Howard, the criminal who killed Andy and Terry's father, Jeff Bogard. The following games from the series, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special (1997) and Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers (1998), do not contain a storyline. The 3D fighting game Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition (1999) retells the story of Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, which originally did not feature Mai.

[edit] The King of Fighters

The King of Fighters series tournament also feature Mai as a regular character participating in the annual tournaments in the Women Fighters Team. Initially, the team is composed of Mai and King and Yuri Sakazaki from the Art of Fighting series, but it changes constantly. In The King of Fighters '99, the teams were expanded to four members, and so Mai goes to the Fatal Fury Team (composed of Terry, Andy and Joe Higashi). She returns to the Women Fighters Team in The King of Fighters 2000 for the following games, until she leaves competition in The King of Fighters XI (2005) in order to search for Andy who was absent in 2003 (Mai appears in the PS2 version of the game as a hidden character). In The King of Fighters XIII (2010), she returns to the series along with the other two members of the '94 Women's Team.^[9][10]

Other appearances[link]

Mai is present as a playable character in every game in the SNK vs. Capcom crossover fighting game series since 1999, featured in a role of a rival to Street Fighter's Chun-Li, and appears as a playable character in Namco Bandai's tactical role-playing game Queen's Gate: Spiral Chaos released for the PSP in 2011.^[11] She is also a playable character in the fighting games SNK Gals' Fighters (2000) and NeoGeo Battle Coliseum (2005),^[12] in the shooting game The King of Fighters Sky Stage (2010),^[13][14] in the quiz game Quiz King of Fighters (1995), and in the mobile games SNK Beach Volley～GAL'S ATTACK～ and Neo Geo Tennis Coliseum,^[15][16] as well as in many minor mobile games.^{[note 1]}

In The King of Fighters: Kyo, a role-playing game settled right in between KOF'96 and KOF'97, Mai is not a non-playable character who provides Kyo Kusanagi with info and help during his trials. She is also a character in the four games in the dating simulation series Days of Memories (first, fifth, eighth and ninth), and made cameo appearances in character endings in Samurai Shodown,^[17][18] Art of Fighting 2, Shinsetsu Samurai Spirits: Bushidou Retsuden (in the Neo Geo CD version only) and The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise. In the North American release of Art of Fighting it is implied that Eiji Kisaragi has feelings for her^[19] (the original Japanese version contains nothing of the sort canon-wise).

Gameplay[link]

This section requires expansion.

According to Sega Saturn Magazine, Mai "is one of the easiest characters to master and also has a huge range of pyrotechnically astounding special moves" in Real Bout Fatal Fury.^[20]

In other media[link]

This section requires expansion.

Mai makes her first anime appearance in Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle (1993), where she follows Andy on his travels to find Krauser in Germany, where she is approached and later attacked by Laurence Blood; Andy defeats Blood and rescues Mai.^[21] In Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture (1994), Mai is present with Terry, Andy and Joe when the quest to find the Armor of Mars and stop the would-be conqueror Laocorn Gaudeamus is given to them by Sulia, Laocorn's sister; as usual, Mai tags along mostly as an excuse to spend time with Andy, and is taken hostage by Hauer and participates in the final battle against Laocorn Gaudeamus.^[22] She also has a minor role in the 2005 original net animation The King of Fighters: Another Day.^[23]

In the 2009 live-action film The King of Fighters, loosely based on the game series, Mai was played by Maggie Q,^[24] bearing little resemblance to the video game character.^[25] As in the case of the rest of KOF characters in the film, her appearance, biography, and personality were re-designed from scratch. SpoonyOne called this film's Mai "basically a microcosm of everything that is wrong with the King of Fighters movie" as "they got every single aspect of this characters, except of the fact that she is a woman I guess, completely and utterly wrong."^[26]

In promotion and merchandise[link]

Mai is a featured character^[27] in one of the Queen's Gate gamebooks, published by Hobby Japan in 2008 as part of its Queen's Blade erotic system.^[28] She also appears as a roulette character in several pachinko game machines.^{[note 2]}

Scores^[29] of different figures, statuettes and dolls were made in her image by Aizu Project,^[30] Max Factory,^[31] Daiki,^[32][33] among many other manufacturers. An action figure figure was also made in the Cy Girls series.^[34] A third-party company has made a custom Neo Geo joystick controller for PlayStation consoles decorated with Mai-related imagery.^[35] Several official Mai T-shirts were also released.^[29] She has a number of cards (including a starter deck "Mai Shiranui") in the Universal Fighting System collectible card game.^[36]

Reception[link]

Mai's sex appeal has quickly made her a famous and popular character, turning her into a female icon of SNK. According to a retrospective article by GamesRadar, in the early 1990s "gaming magazines were abuzz with commentary on what Mai's bobbing bosom meant for the industry - it was like witnessing (half-naked) women entering the workplace for the first time."^{[37][note 3]} In 2009, SNK Playmore's decision to not add to her in any form in The King of Fighters XII has disappointed and even upset many fans.^[38][39][40] She is also noted to be popular in the cosplay community,^[41][42] including a homage video Queen of Fighters 2005 released by the pornographic actress Misa Nishida,^[43] and a 2012 cosplay by the Taiwanese model Yoyo Mung.^[44]

Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked Mai as tenth on the list of the best women of fighting games in 1993,^[45] and awarded her the title of "Hottest Game Babe of 1994".^[46] Japanese magazine Gamest named Mai her as one of the best characters in video gaming for five consecutive years in their annual awards, placing her at second place in 1994, tenth in 1995, 21st in 1996, 28st in 1997, and 25th in 1998.^{[47][48][49][50][51]}

Mai was featured in many lists of the most sexy female characters in all video games, including being ranked as the fourth top "babe in games" by GameSpy in 2003,^[52] as the sixth "hottest game babe" by GameDaily in 2008,^[53] and as fifth among gaming's "hottest babes" by MSN in 2009, with a comment: "the developers may have created a character that will upset every feminist out there, but the guys ain't complaining."^[54] In 2010, she was ranked as the fourth "hottest video game babe ever" by PopCrunch,^[55] and as the fourth "hottest video game girl of all time" by CraveOnline.^[56] In 2011, her breasts were ranked as the fifth best in gaming history by GameFront,^[57] and as number one by Joystick Division.^[58] In 2012, Nintendo World Report ranked Mai as the third top chesty heroine on Nintendo systems, calling her "the queen of gaming cleavage",^[59] while FHM included her among the nine "sexiest ninja babes in games" and compared her to Daiana Menezes.^[60]

GameDaily featured Mai three times in the babe-of-the-week series in the galleries "Outrageous Boobs",^[61] "Asian Beauties",^[62] and the special "Mai Shiranui",^[63] as well as in the 2007 article "Boobs Through the Years" ("when it comes to 2-D breasts, no character tops Mai Shiranui").^[64] Complex included her in their lists of 50 "hottest women in video games" (2010),^[65] and ten "hottest video game girls" (2009).^[66] UGO.com ranked Mai as the seventh on the list of top "girls of gaming" in 2008, describing her as "an unapologetic sex symbol" and a mascot for both the King of Fighters series and SNK as a whole,^[67] and as the sixth "hottest videogame hottie" in 2010 (calling her the "Chun-Li of the SNK universe" and stating their preference for her over this Capcom character).^[68] In 2011, UGO also listed her among the 25 finest female characters of fighting games,^[41] as well as one of 25 "hot ninja girls" in entertainment.^[69]

Mai was featured on several lists of top ten ninja characters in video games, including by CrunchGear in 2008 (ranked seventh),^[70] and GamePro (ranked sixth),^[42] and Wild Gunmen (ranked ninth) in 2010.^[71] In 2011, msnbc.com included Mai's classic costume as one of the five most preposterous outfits in games.^[72]

Notes[link]

1.^note 1 Such as The King of Fighters Mahjong, The King of Fighters Volleyball, The King of Millionaire, KOF Gals Mahjong, SNK Beach Volley Gal's Attack, SNK Gal's Open ~Cutey Shot~ and SNK Gals Island Dokidoki Puzzle Shock!.

2.^note 2 Including the pachinko slot machines "Garou Densetsu The Legend of Wild Wolf", "Garou Densetsu Special", "The King of Fighters", "The King of Fighters 2" and "Maximum Impact".

2.^note 3 An example of this could be the review of Fatal Fury 2 by VG&CE ("if Street Fighter's Chun Li turns you on, you're bound to be tittulated by the sight of Mai Shiranui, who jiggles through the battle wearing next-to-nothing from the waist down").^[73]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mai at The King of Fighters 15th Anniversary official website
• (Japanese) Mai at the Fatal Fury 15th Anniversary official website
• Mai Shiranui – SNK Wiki
• Mai Shiranui at the Internet Movie Database

Laura Stoica (1995)

Laura Stoica (October 10, 1967 - March 9, 2006) was a Romanian singer, composer and actress.

In 1986, she graduated from the "Popular Arts School" in Târgovişte with a degree in classic canto. Afterwards, she participated at all the major new-talent contests held in Romania. In 1989, she got a one-year singing contract at "Toma Caragiu" Theatre in Ploieşti.

Stoica made her debut in 1990 at the "Mamaia" festival with the Un actor grăbit song ("An Actor in a hurry", written by Bogdan Cristinoiu). The following year she was declared the best pop-rock singer and Un actor grăbit became the song of the year. Her debut album, entitled Focul (The Fire,) was released in 1994. Since then, Stoica's songs have been included in many compilations. Her second album, Nici o stea ("Any Star"), was released in 1997.

Stoica was also an actress. In 2000, she graduated from the Ecological University of Bucharest with a degree in drama.

On March 9, 2006, Laura Stoica and her fiancé lost their lives in a car accident near Urziceni. She was pregnant at the time.^[1]

Discography[link]

• Un actor grăbit, 1992
• Focul, 1994
• Nici o stea, 1997
• Oameni de zăpadă, 1997
• Back Stage Live, 1999
• S-a schimbat, 2005
• Dă, Doamne, cântec, 2007
• Ediţie specială (DVD), 2007
• Focul (reissue), 2008
• Vino, 2009

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Page
• Laura Stoica on Last.FM

Gaby Amarantos
Gaby Amarantos (2011)
Background information
Birth name	Gabriela Amaral dos Santos
Born	1980 Belém, Pará, Brazil
Occupations	Singer
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1995–present
Website	http://www.gabyamarantos.com/

Gaby Amarantos (or Gabi Amaranto) is a Brazilian singer and dancer of tecno brega.^[1]

Biography[link]

Amarantos was born in the district of Jurunas, outskirts of Belém, state of Pará. She began singing at the age of 15, in the Parish of St. Therese of Lisieux. Coming from a family of samba dancers, during her adolescence she also heard singers of the Flashbrega movement (Pará's brega style of the 1970s), MPB and jazz (especially Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday).^[2]

Since 2000, she began to be recognized as one of the emerging stars of Pará's "tecnomelody".^[2] From 2002 on, at the head of the Banda Tecno Show, Amarantos has recorded two CDs and one DVD. She participated in the Daniel Peixoto Shine Party in april 2012^[3].

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Musa do tecnobrega, Gaby Amarantos festeja música do Norte (Portuguese)

Antonello Venditti
Antonello Venditti in 2008
Background information
Born	(1949-03-08) 8 March 1949 (age 63) Rome, Italy
Genres	Pop Pop rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Years active	1971–present
Labels	It RCA Italiana Philips Heinz Music Buena Vista/Walt Disney
Website	www.antonellovenditti.it

Antonello Venditti (born 8 March 1949) is an Italian singer-songwriter who became famous in the 1970s for the social themes of his songs.

Biography[link]

Antonello Venditti was born in Rome, the son of a police commissioner from Molise, who would later become deputy-chief of police in Rome.

He studied piano in his youth and made his debut in the music world in the early 1970s at the Folkstudio of Rome, together with singers like Francesco De Gregori and Giorgio Lo Cascio. In duo with the former he released in 1972 his first LP, Theorius Campus. The LP scored little success, but Venditti at least made himself noted for the strength of his vocal qualities and for his attention to social issues, evidenced by pieces like Sora Rosa which is sung in Roman dialect. Also in dialect was Roma Capoccia, a declaration of love for his city, which later became one of his most famous songs. Curiously, Venditti refused to sing it for several years, as he considered it not politically or socially "engaged" enough.

Venditti subsequently moved to Milan and released L'orso bruno (1973), made in collaboration with musician Vince Tempera; this album included another song in dialect, E li ponti so' soli, but otherwise was marked by an even stronger attention to social themes. His next work, Le cose della vita ("Things of Our Life"), released the same year for the colossus RCA Music, confirmed this tendency. The following LP Quando verrà Natale ("When Christmas Comes") was similar; its even more naked arrangements emphasize the strength of Venditti's denunciation. After a live performance of the song "A Cristo" ("To Christ"), he was denounced by an Italian police officer for blasphemy. Venditti, however, was later totally acquitted.

Although Venditti's use of religious language was not typical of the culture of the left, his manner of life in the late '60s and the '70s was, as he later told the journalist Giampaolo Mattei, a "secular" one: "They were years in which the influence of the left was really strong and the life of us young people then was somewhat orphaned of God. I think it was the everyday life of the time that led me to participate in and embrace certain things. I emerged from that when I realised it was a dead end because it took away people's happiness. Maybe it did give them social growth, but about happiness it had nothing to say. Too much materialism and too little spirituality. A whole generation grew up with that materialism, with certain slogans."^[1]

Venditti's fortunes grew and peaked in 1975, with the LP Lilly. The yearning title-track was another strong accusation, this time against drugs, but it achieved an outstanding success anyway. Other famous pieces in the album were "Compagno di scuola" ("Schoolmate") and the long ballad "Lo stambecco ferito" ("The Wounded Ibex"), the story of a corrupt Northern Italian tycoon. Venditti continued to deal with front-page matters in his next LP, Ullalà (1976), whose "Canzone per Seveso" was about the industrial accident in July that year.

Political involvement, however, had side-effects on Venditti's inspiration in the late 1970s, marked in Italy by the growing menace of terrorism and by the strategia della tensione: some events (like the public booing of his friend De Gregori by politicized fans during a show) forced him to rethink his way of being a public personality. Sotto il segno dei pesci ("(Born) Under Pisces", 1978) contained more personal and intimate themes. The eponymous track scored a great success, but was largely misinterpreted as a song about a woman: it actually referred to Venditti's career, as he was in fact born "under the Pisces sign".

Success was, however, marred by his divorce from his wife Simona Izzo. She won custody of Venditti's son, Francesco Saverio. The following LP, Buona domenica (1979), was strongly marked by this difficult period. It contained, however, several classics, like the title-track and the ballad Modena, which featured Gato Barbieri on saxophone and is considered one of Venditt's finest works.

In 1982 the bitter Sotto la pioggia marked Venditti's passage to his own label, Heinz Music, and the beginning of the long-lasting collaboration with producer Alessandro Colombini. The following year A.S. Roma, his city's football team, won its long-awaited second scudetto: Venditti was therefore called upon to take part in the official celebration show, and the song that he composed for the occasion, "Grazie Roma" ("Thank You Roma"), turned into a great success, surprisingly not just in Rome. Venditti had already composed several songs about his favourite football team; some people criticized them harshly, mostly because of the strong contrast with the political-social themes of his other songs.

In the following years, and notably in the 1990s, Venditti's inspiration seemed to become more mainstream and commercial. His LPs (Cuore, In questo mondo di ladri, Benvenuti in Paradiso, Prendilo tu questo frutto amaro) were very successful, but his former themes were absent, or generally less stressed. Pieces like "Notte prima degli esami" or "Ma che bella giornata di sole" (about the Italian Liberation Day of September 1943) were anyway praised by critics. Among the songs of this period, "Dolce Enrico", from the LP Benvenuti in Paradiso (1991), was dedicated to the former leader of the Partito Comunista Italiano, Enrico Berlinguer, who died in 1984.

Antonello nel Paese delle Meraviglie ("Antonello in Wonderland") of 1997 featured his greatest hits accompanied by the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra of Sofia, directed by Renato Serio. Goodbye Novecento (1999) gave increasing attention to social and historical themes, but had a sub-par success by Venditti's standards. In 2001 A.S. Roma again won a scudetto, and Venditti played again in a free concert in the Circo Massimo for an immense audience of tifosi and lovers of his songs. His latest studio release is Che fantastica storia è la vita ("What a Fantastic Story Life Is", October 2003). Gato Barbieri played with Venditti in this release. After resolving the difficulties in his friendship with Venditti, told in the latter's 1979 song "Scusa Francesco" ("Sorry Francesco"), De Gregori is also present as singer in "Io e mio fratello" ("Me and My Brother"). The album also contains a satire of Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi ("Il Sosia").

In April 2008, in an interview with a Catholic website, Venditti spoke of his faith in Christ, his devotion to Padre Pio and his respect for Pope Benedict XVI, and also mentioned having been assaulted when he was sixteen by a malevolent entity which he identified with Satan.^[2] This led the media to class Venditti with other high-profile show-business converts like Claudia Koll (who was also attacked by a malevolent entity) and Giovanni Lindo Ferretti,^[3] although actually his conversion long predates theirs.^[1][4]

In October 2009 Venditti was criticized for asking, during a concert in Sicily, "Why did God create Calabria?" and declaring that "there is really nothing" in Calabria. Calabria is a region in South Italy. In the past it was colonized by the ancient Greeks and became the cradle of Magna Graecia, but now it is also the base of the modern crime organization 'ndrangheta. Venditti later made peace with Calabria over a cup of good coffee at his house in Rome with the mayor of Reggio Calabria, Giuseppe Scopelliti.^[5]

Soundtracks[link]

Venditti released the soundtrack for the 1985 movie Troppo forte by his friend, the Roman director Carlo Verdone. Verdone also occasionally played drums in Venditti's concerts.

Discography[link]

• Theorius Campus (1972) (With Francesco De Gregori under the collective byname of Theorius Campus)
• L'orso bruno (1973)
• Le cose della vita (1973)
• Quando verrà Natale (1974)
• Lilly (1975)
• Ullalà (1976)
• Cronach (1977)
• Sotto il segno dei pesci (1978)
• Buona domenica (1979)
• Sotto la pioggia (1982)
• Circo Massimo (1983, live)
• Cuore (1984)
• Centocittà (1985, live)
• Venditti e Segreti (1986)
• In questo mondo di ladri (1988)
• Gli anni ’80 (1990, collection)
• Diario (1991)
• Benvenuti in Paradiso (1991)
• Gli anni '70 (1992)
• Da San Siro a Samarcanda – L’amore insegna agli uomini (1992, live)
• Prendilo tu questo frutto amaro (1995)
• Antonello nel Paese delle Meraviglie (1997, live)
• Goodbye Novecento (1999)
• Se l'amore è amore... (2000, collection)
• Magic in the Streets: Parade Memories (2001, track 9 only)
• Circo Massimo 2001 (2001, live)
• Il coraggio e l’amore (2002, collection)
• Che fantastica storia è la vita (2003)
• Campus Live (2005, live)
• Diamanti (2006, collection)
• Dalla pelle al cuore (2007)
• Le donne (2009)
• Unica (2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Solegemello, Antonello Venditti-Solegemello-web site
• Vendittando, Venditti blog