DARGEN D'AMICO - D’iO

After coining the fitting term "cantautorap" (singer-songwriter rap) to define his own genre, Italy's most eclectic rapper has used the launch of his new creation to disown that very statement. The criticism makes sense: the claim, mostly made in jest, was taken far too seriously, and now the whole of Italian rap thinks it's the new singer-songwriter tradition. Being a rapper isn't automatically enough to also become a singer-songwriter, and it's time to put ego back in its place. It's a shame, though, because that definition fit perfectly with what Jacopo D'Amico has created over the years. Dargen certainly makes rap, but he's a long way from the hip-hop roots we're used to: his style isn't self-referential, his lyrics are free of swearing, there are more rhymes in which he pokes fun at himself than ones in which he glorifies himself, he's not covered in tattoos and he doesn't do dissing. It seems almost absurd that he was the leader of the group that later gave rise to Club Dogo: they may no longer be the band behind "Mi Fist", but they're still closer to that idea of making rap than D'Amico is. A gap that has widened album after album, and that today has reached its peak.

The new album sets out to connect the dots left hanging and close a circle, one that began with "Musica senza musicisti" and comes to a close precisely with "D'iO" (not "D'Io", nor "D'io"). And listening to it, you realize there really couldn't be a more fitting title for a work that deals with the self, with God, and with the self understood as a god, as an artist, as a creator. Even though the artist had already accustomed his listeners to a poetics rich in references to spirituality, in this work the amount of nods to the divine, direct or indirect, reaches boundless levels. The distance from the previous "Vivere aiuta a non morire" is considerable, starting with the fact that the latter was mostly aimed at a dimension of light entertainment and easy listening. "D'iO", on the other hand, is turned toward introspection, while still paying close attention to simplicity. And that's precisely its greatest strength: never before has the rapper managed to express such deep concepts with such enviable clarity, without ever slipping into banality. A second clear difference is the total absence of features after a record that counted almost one per song, underscoring the fact that this album is more personal.

Not that it lacks danceable inflections or sing-along choruses — it's still a largely pop album, and you only need to listen to "La Lobby Dei Semafori" or "Amo Milano" to see that — but there's a sense that, now more than ever, the center of gravity is Dargen himself, whether he's playing the role of subject, object, or merely the medium. And indeed "D'iO" hits its peak precisely on its most intimate tracks: the journey between cosmos and humanity of "L'universo Non Muore Mai", the social relationships of "Lunedì Chiuso", "Io, Quello Che Credo" with its listing of his own beliefs as the best possible self-portrait — "Io quello che credo è che non siamo niente di più ma anche niente di meno/ e questo mi basta per stare sereno, come quando non c'ero".

And then there's the splendid "Amico Immaginario", which stirs up childhood memories of Bovisa from "Di Vizi di Forma Virtù" into a setting poised between the religious and neorealism, and finally the closing track, fittingly entrusted to "Essere Non È Da Me", a dialogue in which he confronts his sins and mistakes with the Moon, portrayed in an imperfect, almost human guise: “E poi la Luna “shh” e guarda altrove/ si sente pronta per un nuovo errore/ e appena in tempo montava sul vagone/ in apnea con un panino e un litro di magone”.

The Milanese rapper once again manages to create a rich, cohesive universe, and he does so by letting concepts glide over the meter with enchanting ease. A Dargen this compelling hasn't been heard since the days of "Di Vizi Di Forma Virtù" (with all due respect to the works that came before and after it), but "D'iO" doesn't feel as dense as that record, a tangled skein hiding layer upon layer of readings; on the contrary, for all its depth it comes across as clear, its intentions plain to see. It's an album that's therefore easily approachable even for casual listeners, yet one that never slips into oversimplification, as the previous record somewhat did, and it makes plain what we already knew: Dargen D'Amico is a leading presence on the Italian music scene, and even if he perhaps can't be considered a singer-songwriter in the strictest sense, he remains the closest thing to one in the rap scene — whatever he himself might say.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

16/03/2015