COLLE DER FOMENTO – GET EXCITED!

AL 33 February 1999

David Nerattini

I have known Massimo and Simone, a.k.a. Er Danno and Masito since they were just two “kids” who wanted to rap, not to mention my friendship with Ice One.

So an unbiased interview of mine would have been difficult to achieve. What follows is an account of two meetings and as many conversations with three friends who happen to be one of the most important realities of Italian Hip Hop. A new record is out, their second and self-titled, and they are more fomented than ever. Here are the words without the filters of “correct” Italian. Putting what we said back into Italian would be like trying to translate an interview with Ol’ Dirty Bastard into Queen's English...

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-I would really start from scratch. That is, how you met each other, how you got into things, how you found the time and the conviction.

Danno: “We were asked about this long ago, though. In every interview. We contacted er Sebi, he saw that he was working well with us...”

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-No, more like how the sacred fire of Hip Hop got you.

Danno: “Ah this no, no one asked us.”

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-Because this is stuff that you're close to, you like it. But at some point it gets that something inside you that you say, -I have to do it.

Masito: “I heard the first things I went to school. One day I was going on a field trip to Torre in Pietra, I was in seventh grade, and basically someone came with this Sony and there was a RUN DMC song. I heard this song and I said: this is a really different music, this is a space thing, they are crazy, they do all the things always in time, it really struck me. Until that moment I had never heard music, of any genre, and that piece of RUN DMC made me excited. The first things I heard were Erik B & Rakim with ’Follow the Leader ‘and RUN DMC. From that moment I said ’this music is killer and by myself I tried to do it at home; to write lyrics to try it out and I saw that it could be done even if I was Italian; then I met Simone (the Danno Ed.) and we started doing it together.‘
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Danno: “I represent the example of the one who started out bad and hopes to have ended well. I also was in eighth grade and even before that I was already listening to Mixage type tapes, the stuff like “Rumors,” “Word Up,” “Holiday Rap,” however, I really didn't know anything about what Hip Hop was. I started to know Hip Hop thanks to DJ Television when Jovanotti was there, I liked him too in the early days, he was powerful because he was sending videos of RUN DMC, Beastie Boys, stuff that at that time you didn't see and I didn't know where to buy records. So for two years, until I met other people, like for example er Sebi but not only, the Chromium and other people, that I started going to the Flaminio, I used to go to a record store near my house that would foist the worst hip-house stuff on me passing it off as rap... however every once in a while he would give me in the middle of those shitty records, because you could tell he wasn't selling them, the mix of BDP's “Stop the Violence,” the mix of “I'm still the Number #1.” Even at that time I was already writing things a little bit in English-as I think everybody was in the beginning-and a little bit in Italian, but they were kind of stupid. I was also a kid. Then came the period of the posse, which in my opinion was a period that served a lot, that to someone like me made me realize that you could say things with some depth and that therefore it was not just a matter of dancing. Here during the posse period I started to write things... I was never ’posse’ really, I never made lyrics that were too political, I always made lyrics with style even when the posse thing was going... there was Deemo, the Isola Posse All Stars, but also in Rome the Onda Rossa, Assalti had a huge weight...’

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-There was the early period of Italian rap where if you didn't talk about “serious” things and weren't politically engaged you were a jerk....

Masito: “Then there were those who had figured it all out a digit earlier, nun se sa come, like Deemo who had done a piece like “Sfida al Buio” in the posse period that still today both metrically and basically is a very current piece that he hunted nun se sa come. Anyway some killer stuff was coming out and we learned from those things, even from Assalti's record, even from Sud Sound System, they weren't doing our genre but as a mentality it was similar to how we lived it...”

Danno: “It is true that at that time there was a lot of hypocrisy, in the sense that a lot of people made themselves spokesmen for problems and discomforts with which they had nothing to do and after a year that the fad had passed they stopped thinking about them, but in addition to this hypocrisy I also saw a lot of spontaneity, that is, a lot of people who felt like doing that thing because they were having fun and liked doing it and maybe there was less posing, it was a different pose for sure, but anyway you were also trying to make the listener aware of... in fact there was an audience that in age was much more adult than the audience now and still you were also talking about your life, because by talking about social problems whether they affected you or whether you saw them as an observer you were talking more about your life. If you did a piece at that time where you talked about the Bronx or that you wanted to be born in the Bronx they would just tell you to ’fuck off. And so the mentality of that period a stayed with me.‘

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-In truth even now, it is ridiculous....

Masito: “Yes but before, doing certain things was really forbidden, like ‘ah te voi fa l'americano, but how do you dress, the little hat, you have money then’... before the thing was different.”

Danno: “In my opinion there was not too much elaborate research in style and bases, but then you see that Deemo or Isola Posse had the most powerful metrics, the most powerful bases, maybe because they had more means, not cheap, but they knew more records. If you were talking to Militant A or me, or others, I had twenty records at home. The evolution could not be there. The evolution actually came from those in Bologna and those in Milan since there Hip Hop was already spinning more consistently just on the level of records and the study of metrics. When it came to Rome even we as FDC were a group that metrically was the best in Rome, I say that without being snooty. There was no group in Rome that rapped in Italian better than us and Cor Veleno together. We used to study the metrics which at that time were the extra beats, the famous extra beats...”

Masito: “We were beating our time as Militant A would say...”

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-Many times you discover the meaning of what you write only after you have transcribed it on paper. It happens...

Masito: “It happened...’

Danno: “Many times you have an idea in your head that after you put it down you say, here's what I wanted to say. It's not that you start out that way... For example I in “On Time” when I say “they paint one cold color / they impose not the perfect the more than perfect” you don't really understand what it's referring to. It's actually referring to a certain kind of standard in the media now where the advertisements, the videos all have this cold blue that makes your face perfect and so they impose a perfect model on you. Or when I say “they control the riots” it's kind of the MTV generation, whose only riot is to get purple hair, nose piercing because someone told them ’do this you are rebellious.“ Then they control the riots and sell them to you. That's the meaning though, it's not easy to explain, there are people who maybe even wrote books about something that I put in two sentences.”

Masito: “Maybe you can tell. A piece like “On Time” which is a piece that I like a bang of this record because for us it's the time that has passed compared to the old record. The time that passes and the fact that the more time passes the more you on time you go differently ... you learn ... you settle more to go on the basics and so you do different things than before.‘

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-In fact, I noticed that you broadened the spectrum of the type of base you use.

Masito: “In fact they are quite different from each other. Er Sebi did a hell of a job...”

Danno: “It was very much a component brought by Sebi. He did so many varied bases for this record, and so we had the opportunity to choose bases that, although they have a common line, maintain their own characteristic.”

-The common datum is then the fact that Sebi is the only one in Italy who has a style in doing the basics...

Danno: “Yes. The thing is, you may not like any of Sebi's bases but you recognize it right away...”

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-He's been doing the basics for years, he changes but it's always him.

Masito: “As for the basics also for the lyrics on this I say it's not that we took our time. Like, “ah the Hill are the ones doing the hardcore pieces.” We really started from scratch. This summer when we said mò let's make the record, we said -now everything we learned is there ... let's do something new, let's add something to what we already know-. It was also difficult to make ‘this record. It's not like we did pieces one after the other and that's it. The things we did are experimental for us as well. When we get to do ‘these things and it's normal it'll be another step and we'll still look forward...I mean we sweated it out on ‘this record.”

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-It was easy to make a tune with the chorus and win territory, while the first single is “Life” a song that both in lyrics and form retains its own hardcore identity.

Danno: “Yes, because the talk is what Massimo (Masito) does, who has always said lately “we wanted to compare ourselves with rap.” Others compared themselves to American rap and so they took the reference points from America, we took the beat and the rhymes. Period.”

Masito: “...just the fact of going to a base and squaring some vocal timing. We did this experiment. Jaime said it, a hell of a person who studied ‘this thing.‘ He was really saying that rap was a simple thing: talking over the bases with a certain style. He didn't even say a genius thing but often these simple things get a lot of words out of the way.”

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-You went from an independent - with which you still remain - to Virgin. You had a chance to make the first video - which for the first record you didn't do, almost a suicide for anything else....

Masito and Danno: “Yes, yes...”

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-You probably would have sold more as well....

Danno: “However, at a time when almost no one had video if you think about it... only those who had the real push or at any rate those who had it got a video made with little means...”

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-So you have switched to Virgin. No problem from that point of view. Everything has remained the same only you have more channels....

Danno: “Virgin really didn't hear anything until it was finished...”

Masito: “The cool thing is just that. We have more channels, more possibilities, and we gave the record right at the end without anyone hearing the pieces first. We weren't told we had to make three singles... We made the pieces and gave them to them. We never felt the pressure -- we just felt it because of the timing. That is, they were telling us do, do, do, you have to finish this record.”

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-Which is not bad for you either....

Danno: “Yes, because if they didn't break our balls a little bit, this interview wouldn't be done now. We were doing it at the Jubilee. Also because we tend to be a bit like that. We really don't give a shit. If they send me on a program to promote myself and the host or hostess is on my dick and doesn't respect me, I don't have any problems because I'm on television. If I have to tell someone to fuck off, I do it, I call them by name. Let this be clear. It's not because I have Virgin I play the good guy if I don't want to...

Masito: “Or like some people who have been infamous all their lives, now the record is out then if they do the review, if they do the interview all quiet: -I think Hip Hop is peace, love and respect-... my ass, I think life is also made of violence. Violence is a part of life, like love, food, it's part of life, you can't deny that it exists. These out-of-this-world things of people coming out like we have to be....

Danno: “...all good...”

Masito: “Yes, all good, all brothers from people who have also been infamous is not regular. We who know certain people know them know that they are ‘mbastì. We are always the same in good and bad, sure. And that we're all a little bit crazy, because everyone has his own trajectory, his own journey, each one different. Not only that. Once we find ourselves on the same trajectory, figure out where we need to go.’

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-Then fortunately there is the phenomenon of super Seby.

Danno: Mò has discovered it all over Italy, fortunately.

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-Is it difficult to work with them?

Ice One: “A little bit yes, but in truth, let's say, several of the difficulties arose from the pressures we had there, also done in a very kind way, but we are not used to having. Then personal events happened that I had to prioritize over the music.’

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-Well, that's good though, if you didn't have those, what were you doing , 74 records?

Ice One: “However, the hyper-productivity is generated as well by the moment when there was also a need to bring this reality out. In the sense that keeping it always tied within certain margins doesn't work... And also the fact that I did a piece with Niccolò Fabi. Okay! For those HH people maybe Niccolò Fabi sucks, however, people don't care and they like it. It's a way of working, it's a path, I don't want to say it's the right one, however it's the one I chose, it's the one I'm interested in. Also remixes, trying to do things, however contaminate with other genres of music as well. If not really we would get to the equation that we say black Americans can do HH and we can't.”

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-The Rome Zoo situation. What the Rome Zoo really is, because then everyone has their own say....

Danno: “In my opinion Rome Zoo is made up of 35 people, at least those who were on Dj Stile and Dj Baro's mixtape, including writers, Mc, Djs and people who are not active in Hip Hop but who follow it, are our friends and hang out with us. Everyone tries to bring his own, everyone does his own thing, in the sense that everyone has his own direction knowing that we all belong to this bigger thing called Rome Zoo. I don't have the arrogance to say that we are the best in Rome but we are among the best in Rome.”

Masito: “Semo the most coarse...”

Danno: “Among the elements we have, you will hardly say this sucks. Maybe there are those who have just started, those who are starting, those who have already started for a long time like Cor Veleno but who however have never made a record, those who like us have made the record. But everyone in their own way what they do they do well. So it's a powerful crew, a regular thing. We had four parties, so’ came out well except for one because of system problems more than anything else and not ours and that anyway, in spite of the system, had its own dignity, also thanks to the guests we called. So Rome Zoo is regular, it exists, semo massive....”

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-They represent him in your record China and Owl--the super new entry China...

Masito: “Yes, there are few guests on the record. We have Esa on one piece and China and Owl on another.”

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-And the outro de Phella...

Masito: “And the outro de Phella right ... the piece with Esa we did because Esa is one of those people in Italy that we respect and esteem for the style that he has as well as as as a person. Good or bad when we go around we are all good friends, a lot of people pretend a bit, they ’mbastify’ it a bit while Esa, La Pina, the Gente Guasta tour are all quite real people, we don't just talk about the last record released, but about life...we talk by phone...they are regular people. Plus Esa is a kick-ass rapping mc. For once we tried to nun make a song...‘

Danno: “Classic Jam...”

Masito: “We tried to do a piece that talks about images. Every sentence is kind of an end in itself on that text and there could be a point every four words. We tried to make a piece like that, they are images that don't have a meaning that binds them to each other but if we want they can have it...’

Danno: “I am flash... it's like a photomontage. Instead with China and Gufo we made this group where there is also Dj Baro who is another new entry, even if he is someone who has been around for a while but now he is beginning to make himself known, he made a mixtape with Double S and one with Dj Stile...’

Masito: “And he will do some live shows with us this year...”

Danno: “And ‘this group is called Non Plus Ultra and it's a group born out of friendship and the desire to do things together. Under the name Non Plus Ultra we're going to do more of classic Hip Hop tunes, maybe some things that are a little more refined we'll keep for the Hill, but it's not necessarily that if a powerful idea comes up, I mean weird, it's not necessarily done with Non Plus Ultra. But Non Plus Ultra is the way to come out on compilations, mixtapes, unreleased stuff... I don't know about Fritz The Cat we'll do the piece with Non Plus Ultra...’

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-How do you see yourselves? What position do you think you are in right now in Hip Hop? You could be a big hit or stuff that stays underground-what do you think?

Masito: “We think ‘this record kind of spins, as well because the old record, as much as there were things in between, it spun. So it will spin a little bit, then we have our hopes that we keep to ourselves... If it does well, it's killer.’

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-In my opinion, there is one piece in the record that could really change the general opinion, about Rome and about you....

Danno: “Which is “The Sky Over Rome”...”

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... which in my opinion is the piece of ’99 even though the year has just started, I challenge anyone from this point on to do a better piece than this.

Danno: “You know it's... that was a very difficult piece, not so much to write it, because I think Massimo and I could have written 20 pieces on Rome...”

Masito: “In fact... the piece about Rome when we used to call each other on the phone, maybe exchanging things we had written, and it happened that I, but especially Simone, had written a lot of stuff, we had written verse after verse, we had written several because we were born in Rome, we like this city a lot... and so we had written several things, each time one verse was different from the other and in the end we kept the last one. Most of the rest we also wrote in Bologna where we recorded the record...’

Danno: “...perhaps taking from fragments of things already written...”

Masito: “Ricordandose pure de Roma... back then we also had the lack and that's when the most spontaneous things about Rome came. I in my verse also talk about mopeds which is bullshit, about the fact of moped modifications...”

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-It is a beautiful image...

Masito: “For better or worse, it is something that we have all experienced, we all had a friend at home who used to disassemble the scooter all day long... ’I put the Polini on it‘, at school in middle school everyone was talking about the modification, everyone, even those who don't give a damn, however this thing came to them... So that is a piece of Rome. Maybe he didn't help me grow up....’

Danno: “In my opinion, that piece... I don't know if you listen to the songs of singer-songwriters like Venditti and others, those pieces are beautiful, they talk about Rome, but they can't get into the head of a twenty-five year old kid who lives in a city... Because in the end, a guy like that doesn't care about the big ass. He sees it, he's handsome, he grew up with it, look at him thereopunto. Then he lives the city in a very different way, and the fact of the mopeds or me being able to mention the Youth Front near Fort Prenestino... those are realities that for someone my age are much more present... because in high school someone like me always had problems with the Fascists, in the evening you go to Rome or to the social centers since Rome is full of social centers... I don't know, that's a way of talking about Rome for someone who is twenty-four years old...’

Masito: “It's a big city so politics is there too...’

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-Pure because Rome is contradiction made city...

Danno: “Rome is the city that has more communists and more fascists at the same time, it is a city that is old and new at the same time, it is a city where everyone says “volemose bene” and then in the end the Roman is the one who really doesn't give a shit about what's next to him ... you know ... he only cares about his friend. But at the same time despite the fact that the Roman is a bit of a cynic, the one who doesn't feel like working, he is a much more open person than other types, Romans are extreme... the truth is that Rome is extreme because Romans are extreme. If you go on vacation, the Romans are the ones who mess with the Neapolitans the most. They're the ones who don't give a shit about keeping themselves in line. They are caciaroni, they yell, at the stadium the Roman fans are one of the worst in Italy...’

Masito: “One of the best...”

Danno: “In the sense better as a type of cheering but worse as violence, so’ the most poisoned ones and Rome is a poisoned city in both senses, in the bad and the good.”

Masito: “In Rome there are people who have heart, if you can even see it from the stadium. Roma's Curva Sud is one of the most powerful fans in Italy not only because maybe there are a lot of people-there are that in Turin or Milan-but it's warm, the choreographies they do... the derbies...”

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-Let's take off some calluses...let's go to the ’callist“...then there are some....

Danno: ah, ah I already know where you want to go with this....

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-Then the Pornorockers... Let's kill the Pornorockers... the Porn Pope finally and publicly destroys the Pornorockers.

Masito: “So, I, Masito of Colle del Fomento, created the Pornorockers a few years ago for charity purposes but for various reasons it degenerated... so I disbanded them and this is an official thing. So the Pornorockers are no more, they were a group of people who exchanged sex tapes, watched them together...’

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-Or did he simply talk about it...

Masito: “There was talk about it, but that anyway nun is no longer there as a group because it happened that when they went to interview us instead of asking us about more important things they would go fishing’ that thing in the text that we said about the Pornorockers that maybe was more interesting to them and they would ask us all questions about porn. It's not really that we're sick or pipparoli so exaggerated...”

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-And in the Pornorockers there was also Er Piotta a great absentee, always associated with you, but now gone....

Danno: “With Piotta we shared human and musical experiences. Then, because of more personal problems, we had disagreements and separated. Personal problems and so it doesn't have to be about the whole of Italy... he's on one side, doing his thing, we're on another and doing ours, without one necessarily having anything to do with the other. Two different ways of doing rap, just two different points of arrival. So we have nothing to do with Piotta either from the human or musical point of view...”

Masito: “Except that he lives in Rome and raps like us... however, our rap is too different from his rap.”

Danno: “Without saying who is better and who is worse...”

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-We come from a couple of years where, in the scene, de unnecessary scazzi there was a lot of it, even absolutely gratuitous.

Masito: “Those who make a regular piece have my esteem, those who don't are lousy, but de lousy there's a lot of it around so it's nothing new...”

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-What have you enjoyed in the past year? There's a bit of a crisis, in the sense that in Hip Hop there's a lot of stuff coming out but you have to go looking for a piece here, a piece there...

Danno: “I've been totally pissed off lately with super-electronic songs, with these videos with choreographed Michael Jackson-type dancers because I'm reminded of Mc Hammer. I've been rewatching a Mc Hammer video lately and I happen to see Puff Daddy and company again. So the stuff that I like now is stuff that comes from like the New York underground like DITC? Which then are not underground but are not known in Italy. I like ‘na cifra the stuff that comes from the San Francisco scene and so Q-Bert or the ABBA Records stuff ... and I don't know, the Dilated Peoples and all those people there that I at first thought were New Yorkers and so they do what New Yorkers should do.”

Masito: “Outkast as well...”

Danno: “Outkast, for example, is a group that has very strange sounds but I see an evolution and so I like them... they are regular... In my opinion Outkast are a bit like the Company Flow of the South, they have some brilliant innovations. Then Company Flow, the Rawkus tour is powerful because they are now the ones in New York, but not because it's a fashion thing, but because they also make the pieces for breakers, they make the covers with tags... they respect the whole culture...’

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-The cover of Phase is beautiful....

Danno: “The cover of Phase, but also the Arsonists... I met Q-Unique in New York who is a guy who DJs, rappes, dances and paints... a crew of eighteen people, now I don't know how many there are, where everybody does something.”

Masito: “This year among the powerful things are also the DJs who produced bases for the various mc's. Kid Capri's record is powerful, there are quite a few powerful tracks, the one from Nas is killer, Dj Clue, Pete Rock made a killer record, for me one of the best of this period, Method despite the fact that it's been a while and everybody says it's commercial he's one who tried to do some new things still. He raps on fast beats, very fast 80s...’

Danno: “Method's record is also good because in the end it is not the classic Wu-Tang record...”

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-Back to the record. One vaguely soft piece is there and it is Masito's solo one....

Masito: “That was to continue a thread because I had done a piece on a mixtape called “Tamarindo Groove,” I had given myself a pseudonym... Tamarindo Groove, in fact, and I wanted to do something a little bit upbeat, a little bit salsa and merengue, a little bit fast rap, I wanted to do something different and I had done this piece that I liked and that my friends liked too. And so I thought of doing something similar on the record... but since it was on the record and not on the mixtape I wanted to make it a bit different and therefore even more paradoxical. The chorus was sung by a girl from Dust -a group from Bologna- who is the girl from Ohm Guru who did various productions for Sangue Misto, Stop al Panico...’

Danno: “The sound engineer who made all the most powerful records of that period...”

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-Him and Frank Nemola, the Strong Pipes.

Masito: “Yes, the Strong Pipes... and so he made ‘this piece that it's not that it has ‘that great lyrics however it spins, it's a pretty danceable piece as well...”

Danno: “The powerful thing in my opinion about his solo piece and my solo piece is that they are at the antipodes. Each on his own wanted to take one of his personal components to extremes, and so he did a style thing that has something in the base that is ironic ... kind of a tease ...”

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-Yes, so the female voice emphasizes just that....

Danno: “While I did er Raging Bull which is really er massacre...”

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-Well, also because those who have seen you live in the last year and a half...

Danno: “I made the base, I want you to write it! I made it, and Sebi of course gave me a hand to put it in place ... because it's not like I'm ’a producer.‘

Masito: “Then so much so that the piece has two very famous samples that I can't remember now because I don't have all this knowledge... anyway it's a plan of the...’

Danno: “Of the Jackson Five...”

Masito: “And the other one is from It's All About The Benjamins, “na bell used a thousand times...”

Danno: “It's not that, it's similar...”

Masito: “However it is a piece...”

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-Evolution, having the idea that anyway this is a stuff that changes every day, a thing that you have to stick with it, that you have to love. It is not that you can leave it there, or one fine day it will abandon you. You think you're in it and you're not in it anymore.

Masito: “I always say this bullshit... That Hip Hop is a monster and that this monster if you make Hip Hop you have to feed it and so if you feed it old things it doesn't want them, if you feed it new things this monster eats, grows and gets bigger and bigger. So inside Hip Hop more than making a piece similar to the American one, you have to make a new piece, try to invent something, even though almost everything has been done.’

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-Do you think it is possible that from Italy, which is the last province of the American empire, can come an original contribution to a stuff that is not ours?

Danno: “...in Europe yes...”

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-In general. Do you think you could go to America and say ‘we make this stuff here that starts with you however it's ours...’

Danno: “In a little while, yes. I personally think that some people already on the basics are ready, because it's an international terrain. For rap, as long as there is a language barrier...’

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-You guys are pretty detached from the business, you're pretty much minding your own business....

Masito: “Yes, so much so that in our video we are not there for the whole four minutes, but we are there in between other things that we wanted to put in. We don't want to make a success so much with our face as with our words, that is.”

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-Maintaining an approach of purity is what saves communication.

Danno: “Yeah, I'm a believer on this thing. Some things suit me, for those that don't suit me I'm not too willing to say -let's close our eye so we sell those ten thousand extra copies-, I don't give a shit. Also because in my opinion you get into such a complex spiral, that you start to get paranoid... you don't enjoy doing this thing anymore... because you say oh god I must have looked good in those pictures... you don't give a shit, what counts is the rap, what counts is when you are on stage, what the fuck you communicate to those below, not that it took you four days to take pictures to look good... but who gives a shit, you get on stage and you tell me things. Period. That's how the music business works, and in that sense we are out of it. It's not that we have focused on us as an image or as a character. Our character if it comes out comes out of our lyrics and our bases, it doesn't come out of our appearances on TV where we did who knows what and so we became famous because we smashed a bottle on the ground ... or because we said something outrageous and so we ended up in the newspaper, it's because they inferred it from our music.’

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-So mo we will see you live.

Danno: “I like to make records. I like to make a good verse, get it out, however, if there was a chance to live with it, so that you make a living with the money, I would make, like three times a year, a self-produced record with three pieces ... New. Every once in a while a new stuff of yours comes out, you go live, you sing. Because singing live is really an energy, it really gives it to you. Despite the fact that we're not perfect live, because we're still not able to control you know the voice, these little things here, so maybe you lose your breath on the third song, because you're so fired up that you attack the base right away. But people when they see us live, though, they really feel it, the energy that we transmit. That is, they see that we are pissed off to be live and so they are pissed off too. And then it's the truest dimension, because in the studio...”

Masito: “No, singing live is just a different experience.”

Danno: “We always make the set list 5 minutes before the concert. Never in our life rehearsed live once. Not even decided who does this chorus, not even one piece. On the one hand there are all the disadvantages, however, on the other hand it is spontaneous. Then Sebbi live is, if not number one, one of the number ones. He's the one who live really knows how to make the mc's go, he's behind you, he listens to what you're doing, he's not one of those DJ's that while you're rapping, he's pretending to be beat juggling. It's okay if he's prepared, but it's not like I'm improvising I can keep up with you.’

Ice One: “In that sense I put my pippiness to good use because in truth I beat juggling I don't do, crab juggling I can't do. I mean I'm glad other good people do them, however, in the end, ‘sti dicks, these are things that if I knew how to do them, they would break the mc's balls..”

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-I guess you started rapping a little bit in here again-at the end of the record.

Ice One: “Yes ... well, that was kind of the requirement this year. It was maybe the thing that internally created a little bit of tension as well. You know what? That the two of them are always rapping and I'm behind the turntables, and this year the urge still managed to be on stage one more time with the microphone in my hand. So sometimes there's been a little bit of competition, expressed as well with a little bit of swagger. But it is normal, in the sense that I have always rapped and it is something that is succeeding for me outside, and it will also be heard on the Comitiva lp and all the next things I will do, because my intention, in addition to continuing to do productions for the Hill, is to continue to do my own personal things, which also take me sometimes to work on completely different stages, with a different energy, which I can then bring back inside the group. Also because then the need is to try to create a chain, I mean this is something that has always been known, even when we formed the group, what I am interested in is to start people. And what I'm interested in is that the people I start with, they in turn start other people. So eventually there are, for example, people who took things from me and gave them to others, and there it expressed this chain that then maybe got stuck because they didn't have the balls to continue.’

Danno: “As he has passed things on to us, we maybe brought along people like Owl, China, Phella... and they will carry things on in turn in a while.’

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-Do you want to add anything else? Any statements to make?

Masito: “I take the opportunity to say something that I care about. So many things have been said about Crash Kid/Massimo Colonna in recent times even by people who knew him relatively, but not the only one that really needed to be said which is that Crash was a king in breakdancing in Italy and outside of Italy. He was a person who what he was doing he was doing it like crazy and he had been doing it for a long time and he represented and made us scoattà like Rome abroad as well. The rest is all bullshit.’

Danno: “I salute all my friends. I'm telling you guys be on your toes because if something happens, meet me on stage... Anything you who are reading now have to tell me, you can tell whoever you want, wherever you want, you can write it, you can fax it, I don't give a shit. If you want to tell me before you get on a stage, let's get on stage together, I'll call Sebbi who will put a nice base on it, you pick a base yourself, I'll stand there. Until I see you on stage, until I see you dancing, until I see you scratching, until I see you painting, until I hear you making a base, you can say whatever you want, but I don't give a fuck at all. Because you have no weapons against me, while I do, so if you want to confront me, confront me with the weapons that Hip Hop gave us. You don't have these weapons? Stop, forget it, don't look for me, I don't exist for you.”

Masito: I, on the other hand, wanted to say hello to all the Rome Zoo people, the Cor Veleno, the Urban Force, China, Owl, Sparo Manero, Pusha, even the Python, Phella, and in Italy I wanted to say hello to Esa, Gente Guasta, La Famiglia, the 13 Bastards, the Jet Pilder and Kaos.”

Ice One: “I wanted to greet the same ones who greeted them and those in Anzio, the Susta and then Troop.”

Danno: “I salute Guenda.”

Masito: “And I wanted to say never underestimate us, never underestimate Colle Der Fomento, because they always come up with a new one, always.”