Emis Killa: EM15 was the Festivalbar of Italian rap

If rap is the new Italian pop, then EM15 was the new Festivalbar of the scene. Defining the concert-event, scheduled at Fiera Milano, in this way is an observation, not a criticism, on the contrary: at the Festivalbar, from 1964 to 2007, the artists who churned out the most successful songs in those years passed byreturning, through a popular lens, a photograph of Italian music during the summer.

The role of Emis Killa

A true musical and productive blockbuster with 43 pieces: Maximum Dangerone of the 16 guests of the event, he rightly recalled how Emis Killa was one of those artists who “made rap reach everyone”praising the great and indisputable ability of the voice of Vimercate to create dialogue bars and pop melodiesreaching the mainstream audience. Emis did this through a fifteen year long careerstarting from the freestyle and graffitia world also evoked at the Fair through battles and the creation of works using spray cans in some ad hoc spaces of the area. A beautiful tribute to the hip hop culture that Emis has always been truly and sincerely in love with, as he demonstrated on this occasion too.. A career, we were saying, that, precisely with this mega event, should have been celebrated, but that at several moments seemed stay in the background. And this is where the points that didn’t work in EM15 begin.

Everything too much

Too many guests, too many different styles, too many unrelated songsfew gems from the older records in the setlist. If you look at the concert as a sort of mega party of the Italian urban scene then everything is fine, but if the goal was to shed light on the fifteen years of Emis Killa’s history, the story is different. It is precisely the structure of the show that suggests, right from the start, a different result from what one could have imagined: the guests who arrive on stage with Emis not only duet with him, but they also play pieces from their own repertoire, calling other guests in turn. A sometimes alienating game of matryoshkas. And some of these songs, this is an important aspect, were not written with Emis, they are completely disconnected from his path, so much so that the “master of the house”, while the others rap, in some moments even leaves the scene.

On many occasions, it is the rapper from Vimercate who reveals that he chose that particular piece of the artist, asking him to bring it on stage. Emis acted as artistic director. During the evening we go from Paky and Kid Yugi to Fedez, from J-Ax to Capo Plaza, from Villabanks and Niky Savage to Jake La Furia, from Geolier to Massimo Pericolo (together they presented the unreleased “Nino Nino”), to name a few, all interspersed with songs by Emis KIlla: a fast tornado of different ways of rapping and making music that does not help the enjoyment of the event. It must also be said that Not all of Emis’s travelling companions, on the live front, were up to the task of the birthday boy and some of the guests.

25 thousand people

All the big names of the evening (Salmo ultimately did not participate due to health problems) and not only, were announced in the weeks before EM15just like a festival poster. The tendency to stuff urban live shows (and in the near future not only those) with guests to make an event more appealing and strong, and obviously to sell more tickets (25 thousand declared spectators at the Fair), it is a machine that has been launched at great speed for some time. But are we sure that the race track is the right one? Last year, when there was the first date of the Marrageddon, we wrote with conviction that the Marracash festival would create “a before and after”. And so it was. The rush of many colleagues to want “replicate” the formatin some cases with of the variations, has been going on for quite some time. The Marrageddon, however, was structured as a festival and reached its peak with Marracash’s solo performance.

The “one is worth one” effect

In EM15 the guests, who continuously enter and exit in a game of revolving doors, have “their” moments not before Emis Killa, but within the Emis Killa show itself. This, paradoxically, also creates the “one is worth one” effect, that is, each guest has the same weight, there is not one apparently more special or important than the other, but we all know that this is not the case.. Emis, from the heart, says: “I want all the artists on this stage to feel at home”. The finale, with “Fire and Gasoline”, “Maracanto” and “Words of Ice”a classic not only of rap, is, finally, a moment Emis Killa 100%. The feeling remains that the show could have been more like this, like this last intense part, and less of a long parade of namesThey would have deserved it first and foremost Emis Killa and his story.

Lineup:
01 Intro + From the bottom + butterfly (with Simba The Street)
02 Linda
03 2 Principles (with Neima Ezza)
04 Home – Neima Ezza
05 Forgetting Who I Was + Alone
06 Dinner at yours (with J Ax)
07 I’m quitting tomorrow – J Ax
08 Defendants (with Rhove)
09 Pele – Rhove
10 Alè – Rhove (with Cape Plaza)
11 Young champion – Cape Plaza
12 Serious (with Cape Plaza)
13 Cults
14 Doc 4 (with Villabanks, Niky Savage and Ernia)
15 No ex – Niki Savage (with Paki)
16 German Car – Paki
17 Bandit (with Paki)
18 About her + Rollercoaster
19 Grammelot – Kid Yugi
20 Lilith – Kid Yugi
21 My Illness + That Photo of Us Two
22 Vampires
23 Sexy shops (with Fedez)
24 Like you (with Geographer)
25 The Golden Boy – Geographer
26 No Cap (with Jake The Fury and Geolier)
27 Marauder (with Jake The Fury)
28 Bull loco (with Jake The Fury)
29 The last time (with Maximum Danger and Jake The Fury)
30 Nino Nino (with Maximum Danger)
31 7 billion – Maximum Danger
32 Money love (with Maximum Danger)
33 Soulless (with Lazza)
34 Starved to death (with Lazza)
35 Lazza – Molotov
36 Lazza – It’s raining (with Sphere Ebbasta)
37 G63 – Sphere Ebbasta (with Lazza)
38 VDLC – Sphere Ebbasta
39 Beak visor – Sphere Ebbasta
40 On fire (with Sphere Ebbasta)
41 Fire and petrol
42 Maracana
43 Words of Ice