“Many have pointed out to me that no album of mine has been released for five years. I thank every single day of these five years because they have served to give me the stimuli and ideas to write new texts ». Word of Fabri Fibra, born Fabrizio Tarducci, who today returns to physical and digital stores with the highly anticipated Caos, the tenth album of his successful career (the first for Epic Records / Sony Music), five years after the previous Phenomenon. Considered the junction point between the old school and the new era of rap in Italy, thanks to the frankness of its lyrics and the ability to translate the complexity and brutality of the life of an entire generation into icastic rhymes, Fibra, after having sold a million records, proves to have in Chaos still a lot to say and give to the rap scene.
“Lpeople sometimes tell me you’re 45 and still rapping? It gives me more and more taste, because in reality I am getting better and better», Declared the rapper from Senigallia in a video for Spotify. Fibra, in addition to a prodigious technique and an artistic sincerity rare in the rap scene, has always had a strong taste for hyperbole and provocation, attracting vehement criticism for his songs. In reality, the texts of Fiber have often been misunderstood, in which the less edifying aspects of contemporary society are described in a crude and direct way precisely to warn the youngest, who constitute the core of its audience. The songs of the rapper from Senigallia are today less harsh and angry than those of the times of Mr. Sympathyhowever, gaining in wisdom and narrative depth.
The cover of Chaoswith the rapper photographed from behind as he walks on a deserted and sunless beach, plastically sheds light on the mood of the album: Fibra is alone, many of his colleagues with whom he started rapping today do something else, but he goes on his way anyway, regardless of the fashions of the moment. The guest list of Chaos is impressive (Guè Pequeno, Marracash, Salmo, Neffa, Madame, Lazza, Colapesce and Dimartino, Ketama 126, Francesca Michielin and Maurizio Carucci), but, unlike many album-playlists, there is a certain coherence in the sound and in the lyrics . Already only with the excellent Intro of the album, which samples The sky in a room by Gino Paoli and which briefly describes the main stages of his career, Fabri Fibra, in just over two minutes, with his acrobatic bars sends to sleep and tucks the blankets to most of the monochord and slurred trappers of today. The level remains high with the grim and powerful Goodfellas, embellished by the engaging refrain of Rose Villain, in which Fibra criticizes colleagues who compliment him in private and who ask him to participate in their records, but never publicly declare their esteem for him. A theme not too far from that of On the Carousel, with an irresistible reggae rhythm and the unmistakable voice of Neffa, one of the putative fathers of Italian rap, who also takes care of the production of the song. Two pieces that have all the ingredients to become radio hits are Propaganda with Colapesce and Dimartino, one of the most political and ironic pieces of Caos, and Starswith the voice of Maurizio Carucci (Ex-Otago) and the sparkling production of Dardust, a song that, on a vintage house piano base, tells the loneliness of a successful singer.
The nonconformity of Fibra is evident in a surprising piece like Smoke: while the rap scene, from Cypress Hill and Snoop Dogg until today, has always exalted the therapeutic virtues of “maria”, the rapper from Senigallia, who hasn’t smoked for six months, warns listeners, in a paroxysmal way, from the possible effects of the abuse of psychotropic substances, albeit light ones. Rap lovers hardcore they will find bread for their teeth in powerful and direct passages such as Stereo demo, El Diablo, Cocaine (with Gué and Salmo) e Boredom (with Marracash): the latter, thanks to the skilful production of Ketama 126 which samples Miles Davis and quotes Charles Bukowskiis certainly one of the artistic peaks of Chaos. Nobody, between rap and singing, is a slow and disturbing tale of a double murder committed by a crazy stalker, on an instrumental dominated by an acoustic more troubled and sicker aspects of society. The album closes with the disarming sincerity of Freea pop-rap with Francesca Michielin in the double role of voice and producer, e Outroalmost a flow of consciousness over an instrumental hypnotic, without refrains, between distant memories, frescoes of private life and thanks to those who made the record possible, not least his loyal fans: “And here I want to thank / To all artists who helped me to create this project, this record / To all my team / To all of you who are listening / And above all to myself / Thanks to myself / If I’m still here, fuck you ».
While much of contemporary Italian rap runs increasingly on the social highways and feeds on likes, luxury brands and forced collaborations, Fabri Fibra, who has been riding the hip hop scene for over twenty years when it was still an almost Carbonaro phenomenonis back to reiterate, with a successful and ambitious album like Chaos, that rap is above all message, narration, reflections, emotions, flow and technique. Ingredients that always work, both in the days of Youth Tube And Mr. Sympathy that in today’s society, exhausted by two years of pandemic and the threat of a global war, for which the art of the word of Fiber is always a safe haven.
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