Jake the fury: “I don’t believe in rap for the good”
Jake La Furia returns home: a home, represented on the cover, scarred by a scratch with the writing “Fame”, the title of his new solo album. The fourth, which arrived after the reunion of the Dogo Clubs in 2024 and the participation as a judge in the last edition of X Factor. A rap disc, musically compact thanks to the sound sculpted by Night Skinny, which is both a back to the Roots, but also a look from above on the rap scene, especially the new generation one, possible thanks to the different collaborations in the project.
“Hunger” was your art name at the beginning. Why dust it off?
I used this name when I was graffiti. It was the first name I also used to rap, even if then I changed it almost immediately. I chose this title to recall a return to the origins, even in the sounds. It is a Boom BAP record. In the cover there is an harvesting of elegance, a scratch on a house, and in my opinion it is perfect for telling the atmosphere of the disc.
Why rewind the tape?
It is a speech from Boomer, I warn you: I don’t like a lot of today’s music, I broke my balls. It seems to me that for ten years now the same music has always been feeling. Sometimes the protagonists change, but not the sound. The loss of the flow, the content, of the sound led the rap to approve itself. And so I decided to go back to differentiate myself. Look to me, it happened to listen to American rap and to have the feeling, in the passage of a playlist, to suffer the same song for sixty times. It was all the same. In America, if you remove Lloyd Banks and Benny The Butcher I don’t know what to listen to today. Oh then, I like the game Changers to be clear, I think for example of Travis Scott, but there is one. We can do without the 800 million of his clones.
Who are Italian game changers?
Those who have changed the sounds. They are the ones who remain: the Dogo Gang, Fabri Fibra for our generation, then arrived Sfera Ebbasta and now Baby Gang and Simba La Rue.
How important was it to work with night skinny in this album?
It was a fundamental figure. Working with me is complicated (smiles, editor’s note). I have very clear ideas about what I want to do and I have a bad character. At this tour I went to Skinny and I told him: I leave you maximum freedom. In the treatment of sound and in public relations, in feat therefore, it has had impeccable management. He filled everything I missed.
Do you have some ideas?
The sound came out slowly, without planning. For me this disc has a perfect sound if we talk about rap made in a certain way.
In “Iron of the trade”, your previous solo album, Rabs: “They asked me for the 64 bars but I chose not to do them. These want the promo and art, but then they don’t want to pay them. ” In the end did you make them in your way in this new project?
Yes, I made me alone. I did it for me. I will tell you more: just as we were working on the disc, they asked me to make the 64barre format and I rejected again, because I wanted to do them on my own in “hunger”.
The content of the song is strong: talk about the politically correct and the voice of Tony Effe appears, at the center of various controversies at the end of last year. Can not filters be put to rap language?
It is a wider speech. The piece does not only concern the rap world. In bars I explain that everyone is in favor of everything, nobody wants to offend or disappoint anyone, until something problematic on a personal level takes over. It is easy to be “perfect” when you are not involved. I can’t stand hypocrisy of the politically correct. At the same time saying that nothing can be said more has become benaltrism. I believe that an average should be done: I agree that certain indiscriminate languages and insults can no longer be used, but one cannot forget the freedom of expression in music, in the stand up comedy or in the satire.
Is it essential?
Yes. Rap travels and will continue to travel on the tracks of a corrosive, “violent” language. I don’t believe in rap for the vouchers. And it makes me shit the idea of listening to a rap that is not uncomfortable in some way. I listen only to gangsta rap practically, I don’t give a shit a fuck.
At a certain point Rappi “I will not kill music in Liguria”. Are we sure?
The Sanremo Festival does not represent me. This year there has been a lot of talk about rap texts, even in the face of this I repeat: “I don’t”. I don’t go there and I think I will never go there.
What do you think of the step back of Emis Killa who has retired?
I don’t know what you are talking about (smiles, editor’s note).
How will this record be perceived, at the level of listening, are you interested in?
No, but to the pains around me yes.
Will you stop one day?
You know, I think so. I don’t want to become like the ones I had to defeat to get to here. This does not mean closing with music, but it is undeniable that rap is linked to a young backed. Jay-Z is also there that no longer makes a fuck and enjoy the money (smiles, editor’s note). You have to take a step back before becoming specks.
In “Dance of the rain” speaks of revolution, of violence by the system, of freedom. Is it social rap?
Yes, because in the songs you cannot only say bullshit. The world is drifting, you cannot be silent. This is why I wanted to make this more political and social piece.
For some time, however, he beats on certain themes: “They make me disgust, rich young people spread and pull. I cheer for the maranza who rob them. Social struggle, iron and knife of the criminals. Fra ‘, they are like the scythe and the hammer these days “, rappi in” counties “of Skinny.
It pisses me off a bang the way it is described OGGIGIARNO MILAN, which looks like a favela. This is not the case. Having said that, today the divisions are clear: there are those who show the Rolex in the Instagram stories and those who have no to eat. In that bar somehow I take the parts of those who delinque because they have nothing and attack those who delinque to have too much. Robin Hood’s principle.
A reasoning to Fabrizio De André.
Don’t make the title on this thing, huh? But it is true, it is so, with all due proportions. I am interested in the stories of the last, of the losers, the stories of the street. They are the most interesting.
Is this a generational exchange disc?
It is an album full of super young (Artie 5ive, Kid Yugi, very black snake, Tony Boy, Pope V, ed) who know how to rap, if it were not so they would not be able to stay on the trail, to stay on those beats. All the boys involved are strong and in fact they are emerging.
Is “Generations” a deep piece on your family?
Specifically, he speaks of me, of my son and my father. It is a generational piece that tells how it is all predators in the end. As the maturity makes you feel felt.
From X Factor you came out great, but I don’t believe it is all smooth. What did you not like?
A lot of stuff, but the balance was more positive, this is evident. Certainly the live part is very different from the others, the competition takes over and some dynamics change. The impact on social media really sucks me….
Meaning what?
Factions have been created. On social media, the fans of the judges and those of the competitors are slaughtered. Fortunately I continue to grow away from social media, they will never have me.
What struck you about the Dogo reunion?
The quantity of people.
Come on, up, give me a sincere and not obvious answer.
I swear to you: I didn’t think I did ten forums. I had no doubts about chemistry between us and music: we went to the studio, we hadn’t worked together for ten years, yet after one day we already had three pieces. We laughed, joked together. But on the people, however, we really didn’t know what impact we would have … And it was great to see so many different generations under the stage. Then I tell you, even with the Dogo we rewinded the ribbon: we were closer to the first Dogo than to the last at the level of music.
Is it a parenthesis that will reopen?
Certainly, but not immediately. One thing is certain: this reunion has put things right among us.
