Marracash

Fabio Bartolo Rizzo, a Sicilian born in 1979 into a working-class family, moved to Milan as a young man. Despite the hardships of a poor southerner in the big city of the North, he manages to make a name for himself in an Italian scene undergoing a full creative awakening; in 2004 he joins the Dogo Gang (alongside Club Dogo, Vincenzo Da Via Anfossi, Deleterio) and awaits a debut of his own, which duly arrives in 2008: it's called "Marracash", clearly inspired by the "Moroccan" slurs he was tagged with as a kid.

It sells well: the double-platinum single "Badabum Cha Cha" even breaks through into the mainstream, and he follows it up with "Fino a qui tutto bene" (2010), a lesser success. He relaunches his career with "King del rap" (2011), a far more crossover album that also flirts with rock and house music, by then back in vogue hybridized with hip-hop, partly thanks to the pull of Fabri Fibra. In 2012 he founds Roccia Music, his own independent label, then, after a few delays, releases "Status" (2015), his true breakthrough into the mainstream: radio singles, cross-genre collaborations (from Gué Pequeno to Tiziano Ferro), and a modern production already hinting at trap. He crowns this positive period by teaming up with another rapper now enjoying full mainstream success, his friend Gué Pequeno, for the album "Santeria" (2016), double platinum, number one on the Italian charts and another seven platinum certifications for its singles.

A period of special editions and collaborations follows, then a personal crisis leads him to vanish from social media. He re-emerges in 2019, collaborating with Elodie on the triple-platinum hit "Margarita", and then with his sixth studio work, "Persona". For the Italian public it's the album of the year, a staggering quintuple-platinum success that ushers in a more complex structure, built around an underlying theme that ties everything together. The ideal continuation of this new path arrives with "Us, Them, the Others" (2021), which extends the insights of its predecessor from the analysis of the individual to society as a whole.

(Antonio Silvestri)

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