Lord Bean

The ultimate cult album of 2000s Italian hip-hop is “Lingua ferita” by Lord Bean, the rapper alias of Luca Barcellona. An alien product, the emanation of an uncompromising underground inspired by the roughest and most creative U.S. hip-hop, especially El-P during his Def Jux period. In 2005, at the time of its first release, it was the rapper himself who explained the genesis of the project in an interview on hotmc:

Let’s start by saying that the album includes an instrumental track from The Cold Vein by Cannibal Ox and some from Collecting the Kid, which were never actually used for rap, while most of them come from Fantastic Damage. That last one in particular is a crazy album, which has its own exceptional value, regardless of whether you like it or not. The first time I had it in my hands, after listening to just one track, I said to myself, “this guy’s insane!” and I immediately set it aside, didn’t think about it again; after eight months I listened to it again and the effect was completely different, but to really get into El-P’s trip it took me about a year. In the end, I realized I couldn’t pretend that kind of sound didn’t exist, that somehow I had to pay tribute to it.

The instrumentals and samples of this gem of the Italian rap underground were never officially cleared, and so for more than twenty years “Lingua ferita” didn’t officially exist, except as a collector’s item and underground treasure. The author made it available for free download, and from there it spread by word of mouth and file sharing. The more curious found their way to it, like the author of this text, by following citations in books or seeing it placed highly in lists of the greatest Italian hip-hop albums of all time. And beyond El-P’s creative and chaotic instrumentals, “Lingua ferita” stands out for Lord Bean’s intelligent, aggressive, and original rhymes — one of the rappers furthest from the idea of immediacy, simplicity, and conformity. He avoids choruses, builds long and elaborate verses, and lets the flow shape the words until the tracks become examples of urban metrical exercise, a concentration of power and unease, energy and harshness: “Volevi rap italiano allora perdi già / Volevi rap insano, prego, per di qua,” he proclaims in the opening “Il tuo fottuto nome.” And that’s just the beginning of a wild ride — as the rapper himself calls it — which is hard to break down into separate episodes or recommend piecemeal: today it might seem like an oddity, but “Lingua ferita” delivers its full power when listened to in one go.

“Lingua ferita” is a tribute to El-P but also a highly authorial album, which both initiates and essentially ends a way of making rap that has not really been replicated in Italy since. Anti-commercial but deeply hip-hop, never turning into something else like Uochi Toki did. Its status as a “secret” album long weakened its impact on the scene, reducing its references among the next generation: it’s not the debut of Club Dogo, Salmo, or Marracash, in other words — those artists earned great appreciation over time also thanks to long careers and hits that reached the mainstream audience. Luca Barcellona, on the other hand, became an internationally renowned writer and master calligrapher, effectively leaving his rapper career behind, and his only album was, for twenty years, hard to find except through secondary channels.

Then, in April 2025, the surprise: “Lingua ferita” was reissued in a new version, labeled “XX”, with brand-new productions by heavyweight Fritz Da Cat and the less celebrated but still excellent DJ Craim (see his contribution to the Artificial Kid project). Again, it was the rapper himself who explained what happened:

When a few years ago I found the original “Lingua Ferita” recording sessions, I thought I’d give it new life, asking Fritz and DJ Craim to produce beats designed specifically for it. Probably, if I had involved them back then, the album would have turned out this way — and I would’ve been thrilled that it was made by two of my best friends, as well as two of my favorite producers.

So now we have a “new” “Lingua ferita” in our hands — a celebration of the original but also the only possible follow-up to that cult album. You’ll find it on Spotify and elsewhere: it’s an excellent compromise between the original Lord Bean recordings and the need for original beats, faithful to the initial inspiration but free of copyright issues. The only track missing is the one about Berlusconi, “Il caimano,” but aside from that, it’s an album that, like an old hot rod restored after too long in a garage, regains both its irresistible charm and a touch of nostalgic melancholy. Today, when Italian hip-hop copies itself and others without openly paying tribute, lacking in substance and often chasing the most disposable hit, “Lingua ferita” feels like a portal to an alternate reality — a gateway to a better timeline, one where you could pay homage to a U.S. genius like El-P while writing some of the most dense and original lyrics of the Italian scene. If you don’t know the original, look it up online for the sake of completeness. If you already knew it, enjoy this new version — both the same and different. What matters is that now, at last, you can more easily talk about and share “Lingua ferita”, a cult album that is finally easier to celebrate.

14/05/2025