UNDERCURRENT > THE TWO AREA GAGGIES

AL 33 February 1999

By Claudio “Sid” Brignole

Photo S. Giovannini

Undertone, Chronic Area.

These two names have resounded in our ears hundreds of times over the past few years: we have heard them at concerts, read about them in advertisements in magazines and on their record covers, talked about them with friends to comment on their pieces or attitudes over time that have aroused great admiration or dislike.

Tastes are tastes and I don't think it's absolutely the case to route on the easy discourse for or against Area Cronica, absolutely sterile and inconclusive discourses; let's stay strictly with the facts. The figures tell us that Area Cronica and Sottotono have really worked hard, they have set up a real record label that produces only Hip Hop by making a distribution contract with V2, they have set up a studio where they have all the mc's under contract for them to record, they have produced four records in a few months and are about to bring out two more soon (not counting the Sottotono lp themselves). They have done a lot of promotion for their products in the media, toured Italy doing concerts everywhere. They have remained with their feet firmly on the same ground as Hip Hop producing in Italy. I am not trying to put the Chronic Area in a good light out of bias, these are facts that are not disputable by anyone in good faith. Everything perfect then? Let's not exaggerate, flaws and mistakes are everywhere, and even Sottotono have made them and will make them in the future (as we all will), the important thing is to give those who work hard a chance to show their worth. I met them for this interview at the Wea headquarters, right in the center of Milan, interview room, drinks from the bar available. Both Tormento and Fish and I were not very comfortable, all three of us surely would have preferred to do as we did other times, see each other quiet and relaxed at my house or theirs. But times change and we have to adjust, Fish is struggling with his cell phone that keeps ringing, Tormento, on the other hand, is building something with paper but I don't quite understand... Both of them are restless, the release of their third record is an important milestone that they can't fail and they are trying hard to make things go smoothly. The first question, which is a must, is about the last two years full of events and important milestones... Fish looks at me and answers proudly, “First of all, we have grown as people, also because we have had different experiences, such as producing other bands, and we have set up an independent label (Area Cronica, ed.) distributed by a major (V2, ed.). We have produced four records so far, the ep of Lyricalz and the lps of Sab Sista, Maku Go and Sardo Triba and Bassi; we have set up our own studio and will soon produce the others from Area, soon to be Left Side and Jasmine...”

Tormento intervenes and with his typical cadence and tortuous reasoning (which I have made more linear for your greater understanding), continues, “We want to make one release after another, which normally fails. The labels don't really work the way we do, because rap is going at a higher speed. Fish has been doing quite a bit of stuff pretty much on his own because I did community service, stuff that diverted me quite a bit; he was the one who ended all the hustling to get to close these contracts... With that we've come full circle, we've come full circle. Now we completely curate what we do.’

The last time we did an interview for “AL,” Area Cronica was still just a name; friends who were together. Now things have changed and evolved for the better, Area Cronica is now a real company, Tormento points out, “It's an independent record label. The good thing is that it deals exclusively with Hip Hop music.”

Making a record label is generally not easy at all, especially when you are an artist and not a business executive, but Tormento does not seem to share this opinion: “Making a label can be easy if you learn to exploit what you know how to do and lean on the bigger companies for the other things; it is because of the bigger guys that you will have a better chance. Generally it is this mentality that is lacking. I think embarking on such a venture is easy in case you have a lot of imagination in creating music, you have to have the artwork that represents you and then have those who do the work of turning what you've done into numbers, which in our case means having the records in the stores.”

-Are you happy with the way things are going for the Chronic Area?

Fish: “We are still at the beginning, Sab Sista and Bassi's lps are doing quite well, even calculating that the market for Italian music, and especially Hip Hop music, is not very prosperous. Maybe we are making mistakes, however, we are learning on our shoulders how to do this job. There is a person in Area like Marya who takes care of all the organizational and promotional aspects; until recently, people doing this work did not exist. We are trying.”

The Hip Hop music market in Italy attracts a lot of interest, but apart from a few cases it still does not sell big numbers. Sottotono, after Articolo 31, are the group that has sold the most records in our country and perhaps they are among the few to whom one can turn for an opinion on the future of Italian rap. Fish and Tormento look at each other, I imagine that under the table their fingers were crossed and under their breath, and Torme, after a big sigh says his: “This is a critical period, a period of transition. Now that the most important voices have exploded there is the problem of carrying on this notoriety because an explosion weighs, and the more movement you create, the more the explosion you created weighs on you. We feel the weight of the explosion of our notoriety, and the biggest problem, in my opinion, is just carrying it forward over the years. We really believe in what we do, in producing a lot of people ... In the end, they are the ones who bring us the stimuli that allow us to renew ourselves.”

Many times those who go too high lose knowledge of what is happening at the grassroots, this is not the case with the Undertone who constantly keep in touch with the new generation of b-boys.

Tormento: “The first thing I ask when I talk to some guys is what they listen to. Unfortunately, everybody listens only to Italian rap, so if I listen to the stuff they do, I hear the influences of Area and something else Italian, because in the end they only hear this stuff. In my opinion, it's right up to a point; it's nice to create different Italian sounds and even now you can distinguish typical sounds and the style of different producers, and that's cool, but for example, I learned English from Tupac. I don't know it very well, however, I speak it because I listen to a lot of American music. Just listening to overseas music opens up your horizons, you can hear what samples were used and look for the original song, you can create a musical culture for yourself. You have to throw yourself into the roots, you have to do it by following the paths of those you're interested in, you can't go and buy all the old records because you can find them for 3,000 lira anyway... Every once in a while you can go and buy the old records according to the cover, see how zany the guy is and you realize that maybe he's on the same journey as you... Fish does that too... You have to have in every way a path, understand what you want to do.”

-According to you, how can the young boy be made to understand that in addition to the Sottotono record he should also buy the record of Busta Rhymes, Outkast or Redman?

Torment: “Mah! Everyone says the word mc like three million times in the span of a week... then I was at a Busta Rhymes show and you realize that these people, beyond whether you like them or not, are mc, but mc like in Italy there's not even a quarter of them. No Italian can manage to hold the stage for an hour like they did. This is to make it clear how important it is to have foreign examples, you just have to see them, hear them, and you immediately know the difference.”

-I think the biggest problem in Italy is provinciality because there are no relationships with foreign countries, you are closed in your own circle. I think Hip Hop develops the moment there are exchanges, acquaintances, relationships with others... Anyone who goes to NY at least once starts to see things from another point of view.

Torment: “There it's up to everyone's personal depth, even you, as you keep going and coming back, eventually you do it because you get into that mentality, because you see that they work there quietly and a mess, they're also all dressed up as hell, and then you get affected by it. But if you come back and you have your own way to go then you put all that in there, instead if when you come back you have nothing to do, because you normally don't do shit, like a big part of the b-boys, then it's normal that you go around fucking around dressed up, being an American.”

Tormento has matured in recent times, and his view of things also changes with age. The lyrics of the latest album are on a higher step than the previous one, more complex both metrically and in content. In an Italian scene where lyrical content has been declining considerably in recent times, with almost only battle pieces, Tormento's lyrics are a sign that he can finally get back to communicating something new. 

“Mostly I tried to say, musically, that if you want to make the party piece you don't necessarily have to talk about the party. If you want to make a record and you want to do some serious stuff there doesn't necessarily have to be this sharp division between musically party piece that talks about light stuff and the musically dark piece that talks about heavy stuff, it can also be the other way around. A mc can show that it's cool to make a fuss without dicking others around, instead now everyone shoots for air. We did that too, but then when everyone just shoots in the air the game doesn't work anymore. When you've written 10 pieces, you eventually get a powerful one out. In my opinion that's where the ability to get to create good stuff lies, quantity matters more, because if you study and then in the end you never do shit this study is useless.”

-Have you written many pieces so far?

Tormento: “Tupac left 250 unreleased pieces, I have to get to 250 pieces too, and until I get there, I'm not stopping.”

-So you keep all the pieces you write, later you reread them and decide whether to use them or not.

Tormento: “Eventually the lyrics I write become my own stuff that I make and keep as a personal expression, only later do I decide whether to put them out there or not. We don't have a penny in our pockets, however, thanks to the income from previous records we were able to buy the “toys” to record properly. What I'm saying is this: when you think of an lp, think big because only if you have a large number of unreleased records will you be the coolest.”

-In several excerpts you state that you do your own and ask those who up to now have only broken their balls and done nothing, to stop going against others and do their own.

Tormento: “This is a fad: the guy comes and shoots up the Area and people get excited, the Area comes and breaks the guy and people get excited. The basic problem is that with this game you get to fool 20,000 people at the Forum who become turncoats like the 100 b-boys at the jams.”

Touching on this topic Torme turns dark and I understand their desire to turn over a new leaf and let go of these ugly stories that only piss them off and waste their time. One of the best ways to look to the future with good hopes is to have new people around him, with fresh ideas and innovative styles; Tormento commenting on the collaboration with Brunello Team confirms, “In the end this is what really gives us strength... you know I'm someone who lives a lot by myself and I write a lot by myself, I don't know how many mc's in Italy write as many rhymes as I do. Fish produces so many bases, more than I can use, and so pulling in other people also comes from that, because when there is so much material it's better to share it with others and that automatically gives us more energy.”

Fish is not a very talkative guy during interviews, you can tell his head is perpetually busy thinking about the latest base he's working on and how to make it sound its best. I shake him with a question about his beloved studio--is it true that you spend most of your days making bases?

“Yes, now we got a recording studio with a lot of machines and it will be fully operational soon. I'm always there doing my own thing, partly because I'm experimenting quite a bit now.”

-You hear a lot of unusual pieces on the record with foundations that I would call “touring.” How did you get to this point?

Fish: “I honestly can't explain it. Let's say I've always been a lover of somewhat electronic sounds like electro etc., so I've tried to do something pseudo such, however in my own way. Of American stuff I like Timbaland's or Missy's stuff, although I try to make music as much as possible my own, trying not to screw left and right.’

-It seems to me that you are hypercritical of your own work....

Fish: “Yes, because I do things and then the next day they don't convince me anymore, however, I got into the mindset of saying -I did it at a time in my life, and if I liked it then, it's part of my story and so I keep it-. We make music with a sampler, an expander and a computer; it's quite easy and fast to make music this way even if not super simple, so the evolution is daily and your style changes very quickly.”

-On the construction side of the basics, it seems to me, many times, that you can switch easily between “heavy,” pulled-out pieces to maybe softer, slower pieces. Even the samples are from a certain era, from the 1980s, when we were kids. Were you inspired by your memories?

Fish: “I didn't know most of the records I used for the samples; I got to know them slowly, buying the records, documenting a little bit. There's an overdose of 80s in this record, I like that sound; if you listen, from the beats to the samples it all sounds very 80s.’

-Many producers take samples and try to mix them up, whereas you, in at least three pieces, have left them virtually whole.

Fish: “As for Axel F. (the theme from the movie “Beverly Hills Cop”) I wanted to do that song, I liked it too much. Let's say it went like this, one day I woke up, turned on the television and there was, on MTV, the video of this song; the same day I looked for it everywhere. “I liked ”Eight Wonder’ the same way, this one I twisted it up a little bit because I put a bass on it, “Rumours” on the other hand resonated completely because there was Timex Social Club's “Rumors” and Club Nouveau's one and I did a mix.”

It is very difficult to be understood all the way through a record, and several times you risk being misunderstood. It has happened to the Undertone many times, at this point one would have to think what is the best system not to be misunderstood, if any...

Fish: “In our opinion, whoever hears this record, hears two fools. I think people expected something else from us proposed in a different way and we are almost afraid of that because instead we tried to do something new, to renew ourselves completely. The world has evolved and we have also tried to evolve.”

-But does your record totally reflect you? 

Torment: “I always try to make personal cases, because I realize that speaking in general doesn't work. I immediately see what attitude people are in when they come to us and deal with us, also because when I'm faced with someone who lives like me, misfit as I am, it's just a matter of understanding them. I guess understanding ourselves through a record is no easy feat; you expose yourself and try to explain as much as you can about how you are, but in my opinion you will never be able to be fully understood. Everyone sees things the way they want to see them. In the second lp we had launched the irony game, precisely because no one in Italy had ever done it. The problem comes from the fact that a scene was born about ‘this stuff here, in the sense that everyone took it seriously and so if one wants to see you badly, he sees you that way. Even in interviews, we always try to come out as calm as possible, because basically we are. I don't have any problems and now I don't even have the desire to respond to a challenge anymore.”

In the piece “La Vita Dei Gaggi,” Tormento and others in the Area call themselves gaggi. This is a fundamental figure in Italian society, basically the largest and most straggling sector of the population. There are gaggi and gaggi, you have to be able to grasp the differences. The Undertones are in a particular category of gaggi...

Torment: “There are some things that you can take and make your own. The word “Undertone” makes you think of street kids, then you see us and you realize we're not, and I add ‘luckily,’ but we have a wise way of seeing things with raw images and as real as possible. This thing I have in me and I think I got it from the south, where I was born.”

-In the piece where you talk about your city, you tell that you were born in Reggio Calabria then moved to Varese and now you are in Novara, so always on the move. You do not feel, therefore, that you are a citizen of just one city.

Tormento: “In my opinion this is the mentality you should have. I've been fortunate enough to go to almost every city in Italy, and that's stuff you have to do, to travel, because if you have a hundred cards in your pocket, you better spend them that way.”

-So you say study yes, however, it is even more important to travel?

Torment: “Study in the direction in which you travel.”

The journey into the world of Subtone ends here for now, we look forward to catching the next flight and continuing it soon.