Astro is part of a new generation of rappers
Finding a productively quality urban and rap record, today in Italy, is not a problem. Finding one who tries to escape from certain confines and from a sound that is now too often swamped is much more complex. Astro, an artist born in 2000, born to parents originally from Morocco, raised in Salsomaggiore Terme, is part of a new generation of voices who, thanks to different contaminations and melodic lines, the result of their mixed originstries to bring freshness and indicate new directions. He’s not a rapper tout court. His self-titled debut album, which features collaborations with Anna, Artie 5ive, Capo Plaza, Ghali, Guè, Simba La Rue and Tony Boymainly produced by Sadturs and Kiid, it’s a business card. A dive into his universe is worth taking, because it offers photographs from a world of sound and imagination that could increasingly expand and grow. It’s from these guys from second and third generationsin fact, that something “new” and interesting is happening, it is certainly not all gold, but listening to several tracks of “Astro” the idea of doing “something else” comes to mindor rather to try to break away from some standards.
“I pretended to sing the songs in English without knowing English, this as a child, then at 16-17 years old I bought a microphone and told my mother ‘I want to be a rapper’ – says Astro – I remember listening to Fabri Fibra and loving the immediacy of the genre. I grew up in a small town, I felt like a ‘stranger at home’in the sense that at school, with mixed origins, there were only three of us in the whole institute, we went out during religion class, and we were certainly treated in some different way. You know, it’s weird growing up in a place where you see kids who can afford summer and winter holidays while you and your friends don’t. But the province helped me: it made me want to do something to get out of it. If I were from Milan I wouldn’t have been a rapper, I wouldn’t be like that.” There is a melancholy that permeates the entire project: even in the most colorful pieces, veins emerge. “I’m nostalgic – he smiles – I’ve always been like that even as a kid. After the ‘Vendetta’ EP in 2022 I felt like I was in a well, I thought I would no longer be able to make musicthen six months after the delivery of the new project I managed to come out with increasingly beautiful pieces, which I believed in”.
Astro was “blessed” by Ghalithe artist who, first of all, tried and is trying to evolve the urban sound, sometimes succeeding, sometimes less so, but certainly with the aim of not being satisfied with following paths that have already been crossed. “Ghali is an older brother – continues Astro – we have a Drake-like relationship with Lil Wayne. The piece we did (“PIUUuuuUUuuUuu”, ed.) together is particular, important. And it sounds completely new thanks to FT Kings’ touch on the production. It’s pop, but it’s original. Gué recognized this aspect of me: I don’t force myself to try to do different things. Even my father, as soon as he heard the piece with Ghali, told me: this production is not by Sadturs and Kiid. I grew up with the strangest and least streamed songs from the rap albums I lovedand at the same time with the Moroccan melodies that my mother listens to and with the jazz sound that my father is attached to. Then I also listened to a blast of Bob Marley. I come from all this, not from freestyle battles like maybe those who are obsessed with the rap genre”. Is it this melting pot of sound and life that offers something extra? “I talked about it at length with Ghali: the North African inspirations that we have absorbed from our families certainly offer something moreat this moment, in terms of sound. People complain about the leveling of urban, but ultimately cool music, it’s coming out.”
What impact does Astro want to leave? “There’s a passage in the documentary on Kanye West where he says: ‘I don’t give a damn about being a criminal, I don’t make other people’s music, I feel more stylish. I don’t want to look like others’ – he concludes – well, I believe that there is strength in this desire to stand out. I want to be a Moroccan who raps and then flies to Wimbledon to watch tennis. Take Pharrell Williams, he’s someone who makes quality music, has style and is in the places that matter. What you wear doesn’t count for anything, we agree, it’s the music that counts, but that type of imagery also gives inspiration. A second or third generation kid who sees someone like him ‘making it’, I assure you it helps”.
