Lazza: “I tell the toxic side of fame”

The true meaning of the project is hidden in the cover. Lazza’s fourth album, “Locura” (review here),It arrives two years after the award-winning “Sirio”, nine times Platinum and likely the next Diamond Recordso it inevitably brings with it a load of expectations and tensions that are never easy to manage, and which must be dealt with. It will be presented with a tour of the arenas scheduled for January 2025 and a date at San Siro will certainly pop up next summer.

“People only see the tip of the iceberg. Fame has many positive sides: I think, for example, of the possibility of playing concerts in front of a lot of people, but it also has many toxic aspects – says Lazza – in the album, in several songs, I am not addressing a woman as one might think, but rather fame. And I explain to her that success is almost never forgiven. Many feel they are the architects of my path and therefore have the duty to do everything, to treat me like a puppet. Even to ask me for a photo, without respect, while I’m peeing at the service station. They scream: “you are famous thanks to us, you owe us everything” and they feel like they own who you are in everyday life.”.

An album born on a journey

The fame, success and records achieved in recent years, like mad bulls, can gore, knock down and mortally wound those who challenge and caress them, they can lead to “Locura”, to madness. With this project, the Milanese rapper decides to face them, to skewer them, as in the cover, churning out an album with eighteen tracks that has as its central theme it has a very close relationship with fame and with the feelings, fallacious and masked, that it can generate, even in relationships with others. “It was a complicated album to make because I came from a project that had huge numbers, ‘Sirio’. It’s not easy to reach certain levels and then find new stimuli – he continues – changing air and traveling for me was fundamental, on a human and artistic level. I was hesitant about working on the songs ‘on the road’, but in the end it worked out. Milan, even though it is the city where I was born, this time it did not inspire me. I have been to Miami, New York and Los Angeles, I’ve worked in amazing studios dwhere, for example, a giant like LilWayne conceived an album like “The Carter III”. I reopened the pieces a lot of times, it had never happened to me before. This is because I wanted every detail to be perfect, at least for me”.

The “Ash” Effect

One of the most surprising pieces is “Zeri in più” with Laura Pausiniwhich opens the album. “It makes a lot of people’s eyes pop because Laura entered a rap song, I’m not the one who dived into pop. The song is surprising because Laura, despite being a successful and international artist, puts herself at stake in a field that does not belong to her.. And I will always be grateful for that. The song is a quote from “Una locura,” a song by Spanish singer-songwriter José Luis Perales,” reveals the rapper. “Locura” moves between rap and pop, but Lazza is keen to reiterate his roots. “’Ash’ It’s a hit that sent me into space, opening me up to a giant audience that if I hadn’t gone to the Sanremo Festival in 2023 I wouldn’t have brought to my side – remember – some identify me with that world, more pop, but I will never lose my rap soul because I come from there. A piece like ‘Dog Day’which I wrote as if in a stream of consciousness, proves it. There is also a piece on the album like ‘100 messages’ which really speaks to everyone: from teenagers to adults, this makes you understand how much deeper he went with his writing”.

Guests and the tour

The other guests on the album and the next tour?I wanted Kid Yugi and Artie 5ive because among the new recruits for me they are the strongestbut there are columns like Marrakeshwith whom I already wanted to collaborate on the last album, and Gué – he concludes – then there are also the friends of always: Sfera Ebbasta and Ghali. We’ve known each other for twenty years, but we hadn’t yet made a song together. With everyone I tried to do something unique and special.. It is certainly a source of pride to have an international guest like Lil Babywho is also one of my favorite rappers. About the tour I can say that it will be very ‘American’, I don’t know yet if I will propose some parts with the orchestra as I did at the foot of San Siro: maybe that approach would deserve a specific tour in the theaters”.