Adriana - A unique artist between Rap and R&B

A few days ago I met a girl who stopped me and told me that one of my songs she listens to every day and it helped her. It's great to get feedback like that, that's why I do this.

Adriana for Aelle Magazine: We finally have the opportunity to chat with a super young and super interesting girl. The first thing I want to ask you, though, is something about the past. Where did your passion for hip hop as an all-around discipline come from? How did it come about?

So it definitely started with dance first. I've been dancing since I was a little kid, and in my early teens I discovered hip hop. Actually it “flashed” my brain already from the sounds. I started out listening to international pop, so I didn't really understand the themes exactly, however the sound, this boom bap, always gassed me to no end. As I grew up then I started understanding the lyrics and learning about Italian hip hop, which really affected me 360 degrees. I started a little bit to understand the different disciplines, the four disciplines, informing myself with respect to the values of this movement and this culture, and it really kidnapped me.

Most rappers or singers have a decidedly more musical approach, in the sense that they find in rap a way of doing something simple, based on metrics and not on intonation. You, on the other hand, approached it with singing: did you school yourself in that respect as well or did you get there by “rolling with it”?

Actually, when I was a little girl I was in a children's choir. I always liked singing in general, and I think my mom sent me to singing mostly to get rid of this little girl singer running around the house! I actually have two older sisters: they also sang and together we were part of a gospel choir. So it was a combination of things. The singing approach came to me spontaneously; in general, if I have to prepare a sung piece, my mind starts with a pitch. I can't go over it like that: whether I want to or not, my voice takes a pitch. I wanted to play on this also because precisely it comes to me spontaneously.
Then I also did a little stint singing in some soul and mostly R&B/jazz cover bands. Maybe because of that, too, it all came more naturally to me. Let's say it was a bit of a test for me: I always got complimented on my voice and singing, so I took advantage of that.

You can tell it's part of your comfort zone: there's something you're comfortable doing, right? It tends to be that the average approach to rap in Italy sees singing as something that is built later. Instead, you can tell that you come from that.

Yes, absolutely yes!

And then there is the other part that has always amazed me in your person: this physical attitude that you see comes from dancing. The confidence with the audience, the stage, the microphone -- it comes from dancing.

Interesting! That is no small realization. Then you are still very young in that respect (and fortunately), because it means there is room for growth! Not for anything else, but you can see this confidence with the body: is that something you've built up or is that instinctive as well?

Actually no, I built us at least in the beginning absolutely not! It's feedback I got a lot from people: “Nice how you move!”, “We like to watch you because you create a show”. But at the time I didn't think about it! In fact, at the beginning of the first few live shows, I won't say I was trying to hold myself back, however, I wasn't thinking about physicality at all: my mind was like, “I have to go right,” “I have to be precise.” And so I didn't think much about the physical show.
Now, however, I let go completely: I just go really freestyle and enjoy the moment. It comes to me absolutely spontaneously! Then clearly I try on certain things to improve. Having done a lot of live shows this summer, I am so happy: they have become almost like training. Some gestures come back often in my shows and it's nice to see how natural everything becomes.

Do you also teach discipline?

Yes, absolutely yes! I teach Hip Hop, let's say, to the younger generation, from elementary school up to new-age kids. It is a job that I was passionate about from the very beginning. I actually thought before that I didn't like kids, but then working with them I found out that I love them. If it were up to me, I would live among these little munchkins running around because they come out with sentences that break me every time. Beyond that, I have found over the years that I really enjoy teaching. Seeing the surprise and passion in the eyes of these kids has increased my own passion as well. I enjoy teaching hip hop dance, making them understand that it is not just a movement but a culture around which so many things gravitate, so many artists. Seeing this surprise in the eyes of the kids who thought it was just a class to do twice a week, and instead they discover so much behind it, it makes me super happy.
Like meeting my former students again, seeing them grown up, hearing them say that maybe they don't dance anymore but they went to breaking or they became DJs. I mean, in general they have continued to follow this culture. It makes me super happy even if they have taken other creative paths.

It's good to see how hip hop has affected your life in a positive way, given you something practical: a job, a way to express yourself, and you try to give it back to others.

Exactly! And like from the others you are giving something to, you are actually taking back so much of that energy, with the creativity that children and young people have. It's fundamental in the things you do, but you're also taking it back into the lyrics, into the way you write.
Yes, yes, I absolutely try to do it, I want to do it. Giving to receive, exactly what you said. That's something I care about when I write, when I rap, I want this to come out. I'm getting feedback over time that makes me believe that even more. Maybe at first you know it but you don't, I don't know how to explain it. That is, you want it to become this but you are not sure. When feedback like that starts coming in then you really understand that -- I at least realized that -- it's really what I want to do. I also get the “Great job!”, “That's so cool!”, “What energy!”, beautiful, we'll miss that, I appreciate everything, but the feedback like “I saw myself in your text again”, “This thing helped me”, for me are the best ones absolutely.

Of course, you realize the usefulness of what you do, which is not an end in itself. Even though there is enough introspection in your work, there is some work on you, storytelling and working on you.

Yes, absolutely. Like the balance between the two, between what goes in and what comes out. For Adriana from 2024 it's difficult in the sense that even the lyrics that people thanked me for I was actually writing to myself, so it's weird and cool. I'm glad that this personal growth thing is coming out because I care so much about it. I don't want to hold on to what I was but I want to discover myself evolving every day, that's it, I like to call myself that. Exactly, as I said, some of the things I wrote for myself, as if I'm talking to somebody else in the third person. And seeing that actually this someone else was not just me but several people gave me so much. Exactly, giving to receive. So I'm glad: there's a side of growth, of talking to myself, and a side of talking to others that I'm trying to reconcile. Exactly I want to be evolving, so I don't think I've reached the top of what I can do, I think I can do more and I'm trying.

And then there is another issue that I think is important to emphasize: the issue of gender. Being a girl approaching this discipline is very contemporary. That is, in Italy we don't have a very big history, very big exponents. But not a very big history, so there is always a certain desire to tell a female character. And then there is also an issue related to skin color, geographical positioning, something extremely practical that is another hot topic to everyday life in Italy. How do you live these two aspects?

So I'll tell you the truth, it's aspects...okay the skin one, I mean, since I was born clearly I've experienced it. Then by the way I was born to a mixed couple so my mom is white as milk and my dad black as coffee. That's how she described it to me precisely, my mom explained it to me when I was little and it always made me smile. It doesn't have much to do with the music ... but it always made me smile that going even simply into a bar, restaurant, around, my mom always wanted to specify that I was her daughter, but her daughter by blood. And that always made me smile on the one hand, but it made me aware that clearly our colors were different. I didn't need my mom to explain it to me, but it certainly was a key part of my growing up. Actually this, applied to music, the fact of being a woman rapping-I'll tell you the extreme truth, honest 100%: Until I started doing it I didn't think about it. Clearly I've been listening to rap, I've been listening to Hip Hop for a long time, so I had also realized that beyond Pina, beyond a few figures, it's not like there were as many with as much historicity as in male rap. But in doing that, I didn't think, “Here, now I'm going to be the strongest female rapper.” That's something that I started to analyze later, precisely because the others--the tutelary comment “You're strong for a woman,” the most classic comment received. My mind thought, “What a f**king compliment.”.

And so then clearly you analyze these things a little bit more. In general, as far as I'm concerned, as far as my music is concerned, I don't think, ’Here, I'm a woman who is writing lyrics.“ I think, as we were saying before, about myself, my path, what I want to communicate in general, and then what comes out comes out. Yes, as you said they have tried, fortunately they have not succeeded yet however absolutely yes. As I said before, it's something that I became aware of as I started doing it, precisely because a certain kind of people who maybe want to tell music a little bit as they please have tried to make me something that I am not, precisely a champion of a movement that I hadn't even thought of being part of. But let's say there were moments when I still felt in agreement with what was being told. As we said before, it was a discovery so it was nice to see Adriana as a woman being able to talk about these issues. In other cases they tried to make me something that wasn't, but as we were saying before already I just can't help being honest or forthright and so ultimately I think and hope that what I really am came out anyway.

Still talking about music, what are you cooking now?

Things are cooking, I'm super excited, super gassed! I'm trying to think as little as possible about what comes next and think about what I want to say right now. Also because precisely I am in the creative phase of writing, finalizing pieces. The last project I did came out in April May 2024, so I'm gassed to bring something out. But I'm not telling you the truth, I'm not thinking about the marketing part, how we launch it and how we do it. Interesting proposals are coming in, I'm super gassed about that especially in terms of collaborating with producers, things you know. But right now, as I said, I'm really focusing on what I want to say, how I want to do it Adriana, then the rest will be taken care of.

The proposal for collaborations so far you haven't done much in the way of featuring, maybe on other people's projects. Would you like to start that path as well because it's always positioning to deal with people who maybe have more experience numbers trivially than you, it helps you grow as an artist, as a profile, as a character. Would you like to or maybe something is already in the works?

There's... then I'm very superstitious also, I'm not going to say anything, however, it was also a choice not to have featuring of a certain type in my project, I say at least because I wanted to put on the plate what Adriana is, that let's be clear that I am this. Then I'll tell you the truth, I haven't asked for featuring until now, I've had proposals come to me from people who would be interested in collaborating with me and I'm super pleased. I'm sure when something sticks, it comes out. Let's say there's something in the pipeline, a little something, I'm very pumped.

It was really a great pleasure. This is really a nice moment to be able to talk having a young girl rap, it's super fascinating.
Thank you for the energy!

Thank you, bye!