Lucé: “Today artists have a duty to shake”

Lucé, at the listening party of “My worst side”, in his Naples, made the project listened to, curiously, starting from the second half. It is not a detail. It is the will to give a precise story to the album that from intimate traces on solitude and on an existential void that becomes a gun at the temple, it is set off, rebels against pain, up to the most shameless, brazen and energetic songs, which embody the true angry spirit of the new album. “My worst side” does not want to stay in the middle. He doesn’t want to leave lukewarm. He doesn’t want to speak in a low voice. It is an album that, through sixteen tracks, it deliberately has the ambition to shake, also to divide. That a rapper, a load -bearing column of Italian hip hop culture, at 44, is still animated by the desire to “not leave indifferent”, is his victory, or his identity, as he tells in this long interview on the album and on the role of an artist today.

What drives you to make a new album today?
The warmth of the people. I do it for people. I try to have no expectations, I am sincere.

Come from the reunion of the Co’sang and even earlier by a solo album in 2022, “where the eagles fly”. How does “my worst side” come about your career?
I feel exactly like the record today. I am more gritty, more angry even for everything that happened after “where the eagles fly”: the criticisms, the things that are said about me despite not knowing me. Today everyone can say what they want. It also arrives after a period, on a private level, difficult and turbulent: a wedding, a divorce …

Is it just a matter of anger?
No, even of times. “Where the eagles fly,” he was born in the middle of the pandemic. We were closed at home, full of paranoia. “My worst side”, on the other hand, is the son of a hyper-active existence, travel, work, investments between Italy and America. In the disc, I tell the bravate and my way of life, very punk, but also the darkest and crisis moments, which I was luckyly overcome.

As in the blurred cover: don’t you want and you can’t be one thing?
The darkest story, for me, was necessary to remain on the disc. Because I’m human. People must understand that you can be more things, we are composed of multiple fragments. The album is unscrupulous, I wanted to show that I do not break down, that I believe in me, that I am worth and I defend myself, to do it at best it was important that I told even the darkest aspects. This, in general, is an album of character. Starting from “you win at the end” of “where the eagles fly”.

“My worst side”, the opening piece, is a tight tightened.
Because I feel like this. I wanted and want to let off steam. I can’t wait to do it live, to see the people who jump. Then, of course, in the project there are also pieces of love, more introspective etc. But the true heart of the album is photography and the search for a more energetic life.

Are you, for some time now, working on the pieces thinking about the live?
It is so. Since I choose the beat, I have the vision of how the final song could be in live and how the audience could react. I immerse myself in the public. It is an approach that is acquired with experience and that over time becomes fundamental: making pieces thinking about the tour.

Can we define the anger present on the “proactive” album?
That’s exactly what I want to arrive. It is an anger that arose to break down the walls. “My worst side” means being a person without filters, with his ideas. Even uncomfortable, of course, but carried out to grow, to generate a debate. In such a flat society, so some and light so as not to think, I prefer to be “heavy”. This society needs leaders, it needs people with experience who tell their experience and can be of inspiration. I am a ring of a chain: I am inspired and I hope to be inspired.

And who disagree with your story?
Today in reality there is above all this, of a clash-confront, always based on dialogue. Physical violence has nothing to do with it. This is how ideas are born.

In the film “Fight Club” it is said that to make an omelette you have to split eggs. Translated: it is from the clash that something good is born.
Strong content is needed, people who risk. Album that attempts to leave a mark. It’s all too flat. And I will tell you more: you also need the fear of making mistakes and being criticized. It is also a great engine. Don’t you see? We are all becoming silent victims that suffer the direction of the world. Instead, we should make us feel to imprint it.

Is it the role of the artist?
Yes, who has not only the right to shake. For me today he has a duty to do it. Remaining themselves, each in his own way.

The skit “Letter to the gun at my temple” and the next piece “If there was no anger” represent one of the most intense and profound moments of the project.
I wrote the skit at the worst moment. I was very bad. I felt very only at the level of society. I saw the spotlight focused only on teenagers who make the numbers. I said to myself: “O change or … I become a victim of something bigger than me …”. I changed. I transformed that void into poetry, so I recited the skit. I said to myself: focus on yourself, remember why you make music. “If there was no anger” is immediately afterwards because it is the reaction to what I lived.

How do you get out of that negativity?
I started a very deep path of therapy … which is not the one with the normal psychologist … which has reprogrammed me. Today I see myself differently. I was going to share that void because maybe someone, who is experiencing something like it, listening to some parts of the album is strengthened and brings out a new energy. The album is brazen and why it is told thanks to these pieces.

“My victory” with Giorgia and Marracash how was it born?
At first I would have liked Marra on “Good luck”. With Marra we have many things in common. With “Peace ended” it took a clear and clear position. And it was important for me. Then, however, thinking with Coco, I presented him “my victory” because in my opinion it allows him to continue the speech started in the last records. Giorgia represents the victory that speaks to us.

What is “your” victory?
It is not linked to the result. Victory is to have its own identity, as Marra says, it is what we built in our life.

“Incredible” with Kaash Paige is a different piece.
I am a big fan of his. I met him for his collaborations with Don Toliver and Travis Scott. I wrote to her to congratulate her, she replied. A relationship was born. We did the song at a distance. It is not a piece with the usual trendy rapper, perhaps American. It is something wanted, in the sign of a style, of a quality and has an international vision. You can make songs even without chasing the numbers and detaching from tradition, leaving the fences: this is the message.

Do you ever write in English?
Yes, and I would like to do a whole project in English. And I will do it. Not for numbers, but for me. I would do it more melodic, not necessarily rap. I would also like to write for the Americans.

You have a melodic side, always, very strong and you have renewed the love song in rap. Have you ever made a thought on a possible participation in Sanremo?
Yes, how not, I thought it several times. I am divided on the question. On the one hand I think it would be interesting for me to enter that type of mainstream. I certainly don’t win, but I think I would do well, widening the fanbase. Those spotlights are undoubtedly important. When I participated as a guest of Geolier last year, days later, at the stadium, to see Napoli, I had all the eyes of the people on them, they had seen me on TV.

The other side of the medal?
On the other hand I think: my lifestyle rap, my way of being, would be understood? Which audience would I extend, if I participated, my music? I fear that that of the Festival is not a receptive public towards rap, is more pop oriented. And this could confuse those who already follow me. The matter is a bit critical. I could do the festival, yes, but I would never want to lose my rap identity. I could have gone to the festival with “one million hands”, but then that type of audience would have understood a more incorrect song like “Miami Vice”? The truth is that it would take a Sanremo del rap. A manifestation on TV where you bring real rap songs, bring our stuff for real.