Being an MC is serious business (part 1) Italian rap in the 90s

By Vez

AL 39 September 1999

Instructions for use.

Know at the outset that you will not find here the information necessary to make you a good mc, capable of entertaining the masses and perhaps, why not, to excite; you will not find the recipe to make you the rapper as much sought after by the market as by the record companies, capable of making money with every rhyme that comes out of your mouth; you wonʼt find any of that because, although Iʼm not a mc, Iʼm sure thereʼs no formula that can turn a good performer into a master, a lyricist into an author, and so on; maybe talent is the real discriminator but whoʼs up for thinking that ʻyou were born with or withoutʼ!

Many are the attributes of a good mc, but we will not stop to give you a presumably incomplete and debatable list of them, we say that instead of discussing them we will let the examples speak for each of us. It will be the stanzas of excellent mcʼs, both Italian and American that will tell and demonstrate what it means to write with style and content, what it means to entertain an audience, finally it will be the opinion of some of them that will provide yet another insight into the art of writing. The whole will be divided into two parts devoted respectively to domestic mcʼs, on this issue, and next month to American mcʼs. Obviously this is just a small sampling, do not be offended if you miss the call or do not find your favorites, thereʼs an ocean, out there, of rhymes and there is not always room for everyone. It is worth the promise that each month weʼll give even more space to lyrics, not only from overseas, in an effort to be able to represent with effective timing the continuing evolution of this discipline. Remember that what follows is only a small, but nonetheless important, representation of what has been and will be done. This is a totally personal selection that has no ranking/classification value or anything like that; if anything, it is an invitation to rediscover some tracks and go listen to them again since much of the value of what is reported also lies in the interpretation... Yeah, a good mc is also breath, timbre, flow and who knows what else???

Ingredients (Strictly in alphabetical order)

BASSI MAESTRO / “To Bad” / “Group Photo” / BASSI MAESTRO 1998

I analyze the states in which I reduce myself/ suck up marrow as if with a bone hole/ I conduct scanty broadcasts scenographically poor/ but so rich in content that by now the dust/ leaves room if I embark on my journey/ I'm a poor fool who's discharging fucked-up tensions/ lascivious when I neglect/ negative when I feel creative and goof off/ don't come to me and tell me what nor where nor when nor who nor how/ trust my last name/ the situation worsens with the years/ jinxes grow on you like the first white hairs/ twenty-four years old and aimless/ I live to write the chronicle of a biz I founded with Zeta/ on my planet like the Lyric text methods/ that you just have to believe in and rise to empirical remedies/ like the worst chemists I have the worst formulas/ to destroy you or resurrect you/ ashes to ashes all well as long as all is well/ but when is all well ever/

DAMAGE / “The Sky Over Rome” / “Science Double H” / COLLE DER FOMENTO 1999

I leave my house and I'm in it my city as big as the world is big/ sometimes I get lost in it I don't know it all the way through/ yet I know how capoccia Rome is splendid at sunset for many a boast/ reflected in the mirror of the stores lost in a thousand vices/ too many pieces too many buildings/ a thousand faces a thousand stories a thousand faces you swore/ but in the end you forget someone you forget/ if he loses it on the street but Rome doesn't care/ in return from the night that invites you/ cold that that cold that cold stays with you/ sometimes so warm that that cold makes you forget/ so spoiled and lived at the same time/ teaches you how many times you have to be quick/ too many times you've seen love turn red on a cortello blade/ but tell me how many times you've seen the sky above Rome and said how beautiful it is/ come and see it from above climb over the wall to the Forum and come next to me/ here it is and tonight it won't be stupid it will give me the best stars the best moon that illuminates me/

DEDA / “The Stranger” / “SXM” / BLOOD MIXED 1994

You don't talk to the foreigner and you look at him badly/ and every single second the tension goes up/ he's Sanguemisto and he doesn't respect the border anymore/ he comes from where he was kicked out like a dog/ and now I'm not in it I don't believe in it and I don't want any more/ just contempt for the state and the blue uniforms/ dodging like Neffa at zero degree of trust/ when the earth burns/ it's red alert for the streets you're no longer safe/ you were locked in the house and the wall collapsed/ so now it's all ready for the clash/ with those who come from outside and no longer fit in/ what they gave me since I was born I've paid for/ and I've seen every two years a state massacre/ it's a puzzle but doubts about the principals I have none/ I'm the foreigner and this is what I know/

DJ GRUFF / “Verses Of Passion” / “Zero Stress” / DJ GRUFF 1996

You look at me I look at you a virtual check type dance/ looking at you I see the sun/ think if he wants me I ask myself/ already tasting the taste of his lips like a heart/ how good you are you're my dancer/ you're the best rhyme the perfect image to the morning/ and if you go like this I'll do you like this/ and if you like this you go like this/ you can tell by the breath/ that sounds better than a bassoon/ the melody sings to me and like a cobra I stay straight/ just for you I travel with you/ I know about you I love you more than what you imagine you/ it's a wandering guitar like Romeo playing in the night for my love/ love love amour ready for the tour/ for the fantasy I've got you the passpartout/ but now massage my bale with care/ till that thing gets hard/ And wants to get inside the crack paiura/ makes my temperature rise/ you drug all my senses you think of me/ but how much you think of me/ stay in my verses that then you find yourself rocking/ up down I push you/ and go be well on sto’ funky groove/

DJ LUGI / “Funktastic Mcʼs” / “MASTER FREEZ” / MASTER FREEZ 1999

Pump it up homeboy with us/ all parties I stay with yours/ enter funky psyches unknown to Freud/ cosmic as in Tabloid/ I'm mutoid on the do-re-mi-fa/elevo aloft the gift of blabla/ sup'a on beat nu baba/ you'll be thieves I'll be AliBaba/ follow me to the Sesame my club/ even the ants from Bud will come/ and TaTaRa already you know/ there'll be no butt on the couch/ DJ shake the fly cases/ fill the track with mixes and long plays/ of the Dancehall make it Soul Train/ glue your gain to the max/ I challenge John Wayne afro style/ I make micro macro open/ borderless games for dancefloors/ or evenings in magical spheres/ with rap I collect at every pickup/ one more bravo than Don Rodrigo/ and it's Bingoo with my vademecum/ bella stò As salamalaiku/

ESA / “Play Your Position” / “From the Seat” / OTIERRE 1997

dick grows/ the itinerary isn't clear to me/ I'm aiming to reach a destination/ the truth isn't on ‘this planet and that's troubling me/ no matter how high the stakes ‘this stuff is ours/ al mic l'Italia la Belgique and we don't stop/ this is for those who believe you can walk tall without vertebrae/ you produce thicker liquid/ fertilize the universe/ rest assured no one can call you missing/

FAITH / “Family & Business” / “Group Photo” / BASSI MAESTRO 1998

I'm playing a perverted and violent game/ that my father and mother hardly understand/ but that's what I have inside and I live it that way/ I'm a cursed poet who studied from mc/ how to explain the rules of a game that keeps changing/ that even those who play don't know they're playing/ there are those who don't play and want to teach them to you/ I want to warn you/ this world sucks and doesn't wait a minute for you/ those who have understood have left/ the rest are cheering/ I if I had would have stayed sometimes I wish/ now I would have more time to spend with my parents/ I would have grown up calm in a sea of good/ and instead I'm here with my stomach in shit/ wondering if it's right what I'm doing and if I'm doing enough/ and most of all if I could do without it/ but in ten years I'll be over thirty and that scares me/ I want to make sense of this existence of mine/ so I want by then to have something in my hand/ bring it to my parents so I can apologize to them/

KAOS / ”Precious Things” / “Nine-fifty” / FRITZ DA CAT 1999

So I fight for myself now I have a goal/ I survive I wait for the next step is attracted/ by the concrete presence of a vision/ whose expression is the set of four disciplines/ distant voices I listen to turned upward I wait/ for every question to be solved I'll see your face/ I'll remember every sentence in every mystic look/ because if I still live it's only borrowed time/ it's details sometimes dazzle/ cuts above the wrists affirm that they are mistakes/ missteps made in silent places are/ our souls united as in symbiosis/ eyes closed choose the right direction/ something survives though at risk of extinction/ I know well that my debt is immense tears spent/ looking for meaning precious things/

LEFT SIDE / “Bring It On” / “Micragnious Ep” / SANO BUSINESS.

I fulfill every request for every question I have an answer/ just like last time I represent in flesh and blood/ back to conclude the start of a spell/ you remember I'm the genie of the microphone I'm reborn and this is my Baptism you wouldn't say/ but what had I done you may have wondered/ I don't change like the wind changes I'm still the same/ if you turn to look back you see my reflection/ I have a wide view beyond the horizon comes/ I project my rhymes in perspective/ my angle is more than 360 degrees so/ call me if you want to be okay with parties/ According to some doctors' point of view/ I'm beneficial because I possess many balmy styles/ I'm as salubrious as the climate you breathe when I'm on stage/ and when the needle meets the groove/ I ride the raging beat manifesting rhymes in Wrath/ as sophisticated as Lust/ Superb insult for those who are full of Envy/ for those whose souls are mean who operate Sloth/ for those who let go of Gluttony can satiate themselves with my flow/ for how I know how to spoil you you can call me John Doe/ this is for those who know how I write/ for those who have already seen me live/ for those who know my steelo/

MAHORY B / “I Wonder Why” / “Soul And Body” / A.T.P.C. 1998.

It takes shape the scenario in the dark of a room that./ motionless reflects on me a thousand whys/ like a tumor in my head advances an unanswered question/ presses the mind tight as if by a vise/ I follow a race I spend my every resource and that I can/ strength hold in my bones/ barefoot I run on the asphalt/ as I compose new rhymes I assault a new stage/ I exalt myself/ I look up/ but when I come down I reflect I sit and wonder/ what honors I got in return/ money fame or success I don't think/ I did this out of love for an art and in myself/ but now I wonder why I stay hands in hands/ and in the dark I curse a thousand vain flutters/ I look at tomorrow I turn out triumphant/ toward those who play only for cash/ to tape/ worthy of remaining/ true to my thought to the end like Fidel Castro/

MEDDA / “La Roulette” / “True Scene” / GOEDI AND MEDDA 1999

The situation goes down more and more it doesn't stop/ without siesta it triggers dynamite in the head/ and it's real pain Bro there's no breath/ day becomes night inside a black and white movie/ blurring visual lenses visions/ fire in neurons hallucinations/ nothing changes and everything can change/ living even a moment of peace now is vital/ you tighten circles and see who loves and who blames/ who enjoys and who trembles who spits in the face and who at the back/ eh Bro triggers reactions to... chain/ I'm going down my things and my home/ it's not a fairy tale it's the real Tony you live/ situations moments too tense/ silence that here goes in growing but/ I'm preparing Bro revenge for when it will be/

NEFFA / “Only Smoke” / “107 Elements” / NEFFA 1998

Goes up the flash cazz'è no relax for Isnef/ what's left mo’ is smoke no ganesh goes by itself/ zero bonci for Juvanji saudade grande/ nerves blow away like bunjee/ you eat dust the wind in your face/ you can't dissolve the scenery that shreds/ peddles reflected reality stressa/ corazon y cabeza la cloud un tot thick mi vessa/ down here the night mo’ scassa/ you can't see no more to a that you pass/ dog eats dog blood calls blood/ fotta don't extinguish us energy don't pretend/ no motherfucker bella Polo & Sha-one/ Mello go crazy big things a-gwon/ tifitaf Dj Gruff pushed with sound/ Snef and Mdee with payback like James Brown/

SHA-ONE  / “Odyssey” / “Forty-first Parallel” / THE FAMILY 1998

The wave on the shore makes foam/ it fades/ it's useless to throw water on the fire as in Cumae/ sun is gold and silver is moon/ and Vesuvius on the coast smokes/ and the wind brings sulfur and aroma/ the gulf inspires the poem of a siren/ protagonist of this Odyssey/ gave me notes as a dowry/ with eyes like night/ skin like milk/ sea like bed/ I sing you this sonnet about a portrait done to a goddess/ you must believe me/ Parthenope is more beautiful than Venus/ and if it's a lie burn me because nothing is more fertile than ashes/ don't die this ethnicity and this gene/ and what flows in my veins/ and if then I die/ it mixes earth and blood/ like the place where I come from/ where you mix magma with mud/ and what we have is rank/ and if you don't see it digs/ treasures in the heart like the holds under the ships if you want to understand Naples here are the keys in your hand and if you enter/ it's hell and heaven sacred and profane struggle between Abel and Cain/ those who make vows to the saints and those who ask the Sibyl for fate and destiny/ Greek cultureLatin in the confusion between pomp and nefarious facts/ these mixed people/ exalt caste and dynasty pasta deeds/ philosophy and poetry/ just an idea/ and Naples destroys and creates/

SPEAKER DEEMO / “Challenge The Darkness”

Where the voice has no weight and is lost/ people are turned off and afraid if they see themselves reflected/ when they pick up the gun the sword they don't hear/ they go away with their heads/ in the dark streets of this mock city/ anger is no longer enough/ and you go looking for a meaning a place of your own/ not a ghetto different style/ defy the dark doors closed in your face/ what do you do if you no longer have the certainty/ of the how of the where of the when you only know it's not for you to crawl in the mud/ study the key of access the right caliber/ break through where you're not allowed/ leave your mark keep awake/ watch out for the dark/ one misstep you've closed/ and we're here we're the challenge we/ bombarding with dreams the forbidden zone of the shadows/ united we're a power remember/ and what doesn't destroy us makes us stronger you know it/ when you gave it all up for lost you found out you're not alone/ us against them again us and the open account is up to us/ call it revenge if you want to challenge the dark/

TURN / “Standing by the Rules” / “Under the Same Effect” / UNDERCOUNTER 1999

And now I can really make a plan of how it's going to go/ every jinx reduces the chances/ if then every time there's a thing to be done/ I have to stand around explaining what made me change/ I started seeing I stopped looking/ I stopped hearing and started listening/ if I don't continue other than if I don't lose a meter/ the current drags me back/ the world doesn't wait for you and the worst thing is that/ to turn it doesn't need you/ you have to control your own affairs/ it's from the achievements that people know what you're worth/ keep your hands on the money/ but watch that it's not pierced/ or fixed it will be lost in bullshit/ only those who try are aware/ and the hard thing is to do it by sticking to the rules/

The chef recommends

DJ Lugi:

“The way I write is naturally dictated, either directly or reflexively, by what I live. My biggest discovery was when I realized that I could use Italian as a language to rap, the real turning point was to be able to use another source to draw on to express myself: Italian culture. I am convinced that both content and style have to travel hand in hand, in balance with each other. I always try to give particular depth and depth to what I say without, however, renouncing the rhythmicity of the words; just as a note, a piano sonata can convey emotions, in the same way the words I use both for their cadence and meaning must recreate particular situations in the listener.

In what we could define as my growth as a mc it was always fundamental to be able to look inside myself in order to be able to recognize what exactly were my chords, what was the style that nature had given me, in short to be able to discover my uniqueness through a form that would then become personal and identifying with myself. I had to work hard to refine all this, and I was influenced not a little by the people I was close to; it was always a continuous exchange between me and the scene itself that I frequented and frequented. As I worked, as I learned, I tried to select as best I could the Italian words that were able to have a particular sound, that in short sounded best to the ear, so as to develop in this way new and continuous joints between them. All this always respecting their cadence and sonority without in short forcing them, perhaps as I hear in many cases modifying their accents. There is such a rhythm even in speaking, look how many people speaking casually over a base manage to trigger such musicality that they sound like an mc, someone rapping.

It is very often a matter of naturalness of language. Starting from the deep need to have to and want to let people know how I think, what I think, there is no greater joy than to see what I have just said then taken in. Perhaps this urge to share comes precisely from the fact that there are always a few of us doing something, in our case following Hip Hop, the joy is even greater when you feel you are understood. It is important never to get to the point of having to pretend to be someone else, never to say things that do not belong to you just because someone else says them, you have to remain yourself and tell about yourself, this is the great strength of this way of communicating.

Communication in this way turns out to be completely natural and spontaneous, respectful of that natural style that each of us has from birth, because it is innate to us, and which represents the ego of each person... already because there can only be this form of egoism in writing: writing about oneself. The fact then of having to write lyrics also helped me overcome a nonhabit I had: that of communicating with writing. Now I write knowing already that what I do is made to make people dance, stand over a music, it will make someone think and move and not only because of its meaning but in all its completeness, its interpretation and musicality.”

Neffa:

“I believe that a good mc has to make a difference mainly in form, I at least try to do that. When I write something that has to have a certain impact, just to avoid saying text with content, I try to be a painter. After all then writing is nothing more than painting a picture with the imagination of the person reading, or listening, in the sense that you give an outline and the person who will then read depending on his way of being, his cultural and social background, then he will imagine a picture. I think in these terms and when I go looking for a subject for my painting I always try to avoid the first one that comes to mind. Just think that Eduardo (De Filippo, ed.) himself often criticized actors who came on stage with the so-called carrette, that is, with those easy and populist jokes capable of immediately arousing the hilarity of the vast audience, this in fact never satisfied those who were instead looking for something new and more refined, that in short did not sound already heard. Here I make this same criticism of much of the Italian mc.

When it was fashionable to be neurotic, stressed I saw completely different people trying to do what, but you could feel, you could see it was all fake. Even for reeds, I understand that you smoke your own reed, but if you want to tell me something you have to make me feel what you feel, you have to say -- give emotions. I've always said that in a scene where so many are now able to make wise metrics, too many strive to write about things they don't feel, as if they have to maintain a certain image, like people who set a tone. I am convinced there is more literature in the even ridiculous and/or farcical naturalness than in the impomaturation of a virtual consciousness without meaning that one does not possess it but that one certainly cannot render it. Meaning by virtual consciousness not committed writing but depth of being. For example at the risk of sounding snooty I can only tell you that to understand better you can listen for example to the refrain of “Strategies Of The Universe” or to my and Deda's stanzas of “SoloSmoke.”.

There you will find things said perhaps not in the most immediate and understandable way but certainly with depth and feeling. It is no coincidence then that even on the lyrics of Sangue Misto a group of sociologists from Bologna did a thesis. Surely there is a whole part of naturalness in the disengaged writing, the party rap kind for instance or of the rapper who boasts his style, just as in freestyles you often find intonations and intuitions impossible to combine with writing. Likewise, the “thicker” lyrics frequently exclude sagacious metrics. Take “107 Elements,” for example; both Deda and I pulled a “shred” to baste the lyrics on that album. Sometimes you'd feel like putting the most obvious word but ... you know I think ultimately it would take a little more self-censorship from the mc's themselves ... when you get the most obvious word you should have the strength to send it back and look for new ones, better ones.’

Torment:

“The particular thing that happened to me was that I started at a young age and then realized how much I was and grew as time went on. When I look back at my old texts I realize how minimal the cognition of things was, the growth happened when things around me started to grow. A peculiarity of mine has always been to find new insights from the mc's I've been around, that's where the need to always surround myself with new characters comes from, as well as for my label, the research also comes from this kind of stimulus, necessity. For me, it's a continuous research, often in order to be able to do whatever I want, I create alteregos, such as the case of Yoshi Torenaga, so I can share my aptitude with each of them--whether I want to take care of sung bridges, freestyles and so on.

The biggest challenge on the third record was to deal with so-called party lyrics, take for example a song like “Whoo!!!, Whoo!!!” everything starts from the need to want to explain that my existing (being in the world) is such because of the people around me, because of the things I do; I tried to use classic metrics and structures of dance songs, faster and lighter, to instead communicate thicker, almost philosophical content.

Trying to unite two things as distant from each other as freestyle, made up of metrics that are sometimes an end in themselves, and the lyrics of a song that instead tends to be characterized more by content, the attempt is to unite them into one thing. Even reading the lyrics of American rappers, I became aware of this need and possibility. This was a real input, I advise everyone to try more and more to understand American lyrics, reading The Source or the other magazines, following the interviews... I learned in this way to understand more and more. Continually creating images that are concatenated with each other that can excite is the end point I have set for myself. I am constantly looking for stimulation in real life, the life that I then find myself living every day, such as the messes with etiquette that often absorb entire days; it is from my life that I draw the content of my texts, reading for example has been a continuous renewal of my perspectives, my directions my interests.

He thinks this has also helped me in dealing with constant interviews where I try to explain the concepts behind my craft and my belief-if I hadn't learned to do it myself, no one would have done it for me. I talk about radio, concerts, magazines, my desire has become to want and need to communicate with as many people as possible. Now then I am stimulated by writing for R&B pieces, I want to explore singing as a communication formula. And again regarding the singing world, the advice I can give to everyone is to study your voice, breathing like a singer does, you will get better yields, also because sooner or later you may have throat problems like a real singer has. To get back to the writing issue anyway, I think a big problem is the lack of stimulation, the fact that you almost never have an interest in learning about something new and/or understanding its meaning. It's not a question of culture or ignorance, but of wanting to communicate as well as having the need to say something.”

All that remains, therefore, is to wish you bon appétit.