Kaos

Marco Fiorito aka Kaos One, or simply Kaos, is an Italian rapper born in 1971 who successfully brought the hardcore style into his own. His raspy voice and a delivery that always makes him sound like he's caught in the middle of a raptus give his tracks tremendous drive, like streams of rage, a torrent of verbal violence. He started out in 1985 as a break-dancer and writer, before eventually becoming an MC, first in English and then in Italian, earning himself a place among the scene's founding fathers. Between 1986 and 1987, together with DJ Gruff and American emcee Top Cat, he formed the Fresh Press Crew, which also included DJ Skizo, Soul Boy and Sean. This period gave rise to the seminal Radical Stuff. Meanwhile, Kaos began collaborating with DJ Gruff on the track "Don Kaos", the first song in Italian of his career.

In 1996 he collaborated with Colle Der Fomento, and shortly afterwards released "Fastidio" (1996), produced entirely by Neffa. Extremely dark and often obsessive, this album is the ideal follow-up to "SxM". In 1997 he appeared on the Torino Boys soundtrack with the track "Quando vengo a prenderti" and on Neffa's "107 Elementi". After the EP "'98 Remix", he recorded "Cose Preziose" for Fritz Da Cat's album Novecinquanta, and also founded the group Melma & Merda. The follow-up to "Fastidio" is called "L'attesa" (1999), and it's the masterpiece that the debut wasn't, due to the poor quality of its recordings. The production, thick with muscular funk, is the perfect counterpart to the rapper's rough voice, a balance of rounded forms and sharp edges that gives the record a constant dynamism, a back-and-forth between sinuous and cutting, between feminine and masculine.

From here on, his career really seems to reach its end, and for many years it carries on through minor projects. Only in 2007 does he release his third album "Karma", a kind of career culmination and a new milestone in terms of production and attention to detail compared to his semi-amateur beginnings. He later felt the urgent need to add the brief "Post Scripta" (2011) to his catalogue, followed by "Coup De Grâce" (2015) and finally "Chiodi" (2022), the latter perhaps his definitive statement.

(Antonio Silvestri)