Dj Shocca

Matteo “Dj Shocca” Bernacchi has a hardcore soul and the experience of a veteran. Already active with Centro13 (alongside Mistaman, Ciacca and Frank Siciliano), who reached the album “Acciaio” (1997) before splitting up, he kept producing for others, notably teaming up with Mistaman for the album “Colpi in aria” (2001). His style, rooted in the sound of the early 2000s, makes him one of the heirs of Fritz Da Cat, as shown on “60 Hz” (2004), the producer album with which he left his mark on the scene: the numerous guest vocalists (including Esa, Mistaman, Stokka & MadBuddy, Club Dogo, Nesli, Bassi Maestro, Torment, Primo, Frank Siciliano, ATPC, Rido, Inoki, Shezan il Ragio, Danno, Masito Fresco) move between old-school scratching, ubiquitous samples and clear American influences across a total of 21 tracks. It's an exploit he will never manage to replicate, even though he stayed active producing the album with Frank Siciliano under the name Unlimited Struggle: “Struggle Music” (2007) once again gathers a host of guests (Mistaman, Stokka & MadBuddy, Bassi Maestro, Club Dogo, Ghemon, Tony Fine, Amir and Jack The Smoker) but fails to match the impact of its predecessor. Amid other productions, he produces “La scatola nera” in full (with Mistaman; 2012) and “4 Mani” (with Inoki; 2022), but it's only in 2023, in a reduced format, that he returns to the producer album, albeit a mini one: “Sacrosanto”, a return to the sound of “60 Hz” that can't help but catch the attention of anyone who has followed the scene since the previous century.

The actual follow-up only arrives in 2025, and it's yet another demonstration of a scene that has entered a phase of self-celebration: it's a parade of big names, entirely aimed at recapturing the magic of twenty-one years earlier.

(Antonio Silvestri)