KID YUGI - Anche gli eroi muoiono

A thousand euros a month, eight hours a day in the factory

And they make two thousand with a single car trip

At thirteen they drop out of school

The little brother has a tumor and the hospital doesn't work

Poverty breeds hatred and hatred will lead to the grave

If nobody helps us, we'll have to find our own strength

This place isn't the best, but it's still home

Make sure your path isn't the street

In closing our review of "I nomi del diavolo" (2024), we singled out Kid Yugi as one of the few rappers of the newest generation to show uncommon personality and skill. That impression still holds, and it's what makes "Anche gli eroi muoiono" one of the albums that could make a real difference in the Italian hip-hop scene in 2026. With his personal style built on literary, cinematic and pop-culture references, brutal yet introspective, Kid Yugi seems to be facing the classic trial by fire.

He sinks his teeth into the mic on the opening "L'ultimo a cadere", pitch-black, explicit autotune trap, and keeps going full steam on the following "La violenza necessaria" (featuring Shiva), sticking to this register again on the horror-tinged "Berserker" and "Gilgamesh".

It works, sure, but it's better when he tries to swerve away from a formula that's grown tiresome for anyone who's followed the scene for years. The dark pulse of "Eroina", perfect even for a crossover audience, marks the first real change of pace. "Amelie", however, perhaps leans a bit too far into relationship-driven pop-rap.

More than the old-school hip-hop of "Jolly", his writing seems to shine brightest on a track like "Mostro", hushed and melancholic, with no drums at all, or in the aching introspection of "Tristano e Isotta", complete with an electric guitar solo straight out of another era.

He even turns political on the album's most surprising track, "Per il sangue versato", a pacifist message dropped into a tracklist where violence is otherwise flaunted, exaggerated, waved like a flag: it's the classic problem plaguing so many Italian rappers over the last decade, the need to juggle wildly different registers just to land a spot on Spotify's thematic playlists.

It's a shame, because the following "Per te che lotto" and "Davide e Golia" prove that when Kid Yugi goes down this road he can sound dark and emotional, ready for a wider audience without necessarily flattening himself into trap clichés, even profound and often imaginative in his lyrical imagery.

Predictably, guest features abound, but by far the most interesting is the one with Artie 5ive on "Bullet Ballet", a double assault over a fast beat that evokes dreams of a new "Santeria" (the massively successful 2016 album by Guè and Marracash) between two of the most interesting names the scene has produced in recent years.

In the jargon, they'd call Kid Yugi a lyricist, a rapper who stands out for his writing, and on "Anche gli eroi muoiono" he proves it time and again, without ever becoming verbose, preachy or dull the way some of his peers do. He alternates these more thoughtful songs with more straightforward, violent ones, less original but still effective, though he also throws in plenty more, which slightly frays the final result. It's an album that seems written to sweep the board, riding the success that took the previous chapter to five platinum records and this one straight to the top of the national streaming charts.

As with its predecessor, "Anche gli eroi muoiono" is a solid, likeable album, but it still doesn't seem to fully exploit Kid Yugi's obvious potential. When left alone to dig into his soul poisoned with pain, he's a pen like few others in Italy.

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27/02/2026