Mezzosangue: “I love music that short-circuits with reality”
It’s been twelve years since the release of free download of “Musica Cicatrene”, the mixtape with which a very young Mezzosangue burst onto the scene causing a sensation among the underground communities of hip hop throughout Italy. A dynamite work, full of incendiary bars that led him to distinguish himself. Philosophy, cinema, images, literature, sociologyeverything is mixed in the lyrics of the Roman artist, who has decided to publish officially the project, reworking it. The productions of the album have been completely reproduced and reinterpreted, entirely curated by G-laspada.
A scary current event
“This version of ‘Musica Cicatrene’ is a sort of closure with the past, but in quotation marks. It’s taking that past and transforming it into something professional and tied to the present. In these twelve years there have been many requests to bring it live and print it – says Mezzosangue – we realized that nothing about that album, after all, had changed. And so ‘one turn of the dragon later’, I say that because this is the year of the dragon (according to the Chinese calendar, ed.), we decided to rework it”.
The rapper’s worldview, permeated by a combative “pessimism”, in “Musica Cicatrene” aims to unearth the contradictions and horrors of the contemporary era.: uncontrolled capitalism, social indifference, unbridled individualism, culture of appearance and much more. “Its topicality is scary. And it makes you realize that art is a step ahead of reality – he underlines – I still don’t know how I managed to write ‘Musica Cicatrene’ twelve years ago because he was not born to analyze something in detailcame to life on the wave of instinct, without calculations.
I was very pissed off at the time. My approach was necessarily instinctive. My family and work situation was very different. Taking your passion and turning it into a job has changed some perceptions, inevitably.”
Social criticism
And so “Musica Cicatrene” finally becomes an “album”, in the most traditional sense of the term, entirely reproduced, albeit with the intention to maintain the essence and the original backbone, with samples reworked from scratch and some songs reworked and distorted, but remaining more current than ever in content. The release of the album becomes an opportunity to re-propose a precious social criticism on aspects that have not changed over the years, in fact there are few textual parts that have undergone variations. “The idea of a short circuit with reality is important. It is a theme that is also guiding me in writing the new album. That kind of short circuit, which breaks the time we live in, has become very flat. – he admits – I don’t want to give the responsibility only to the artists because also the public influences their choices a lotpushing them to stay in a comfort zone, not to dare, not to expose themselves. At the same time I believe that there is a hunger and desire for music that that short circuit brings forward. ‘Musica Cicatrene’ certainly has it, and I want my new album to travel in that direction too.”.
Ultimo and Gaia
Last May the featuring with was released Last “Diluvio Universale”, the only collaboration in the latest album by the Roman singer-songwriter. In this project, however, a song in collaboration with stands out Gaia. “Both in the feat with Ultimo and in the one with Gaia there is a rap style. I remain faithful to my world. Ultimo and I are very good friends, it’s really a song that comes directly from reality, from our relationship.. It’s a real collaboration. There are no standards to respect or a market to please – he reveals – Gaia arrived because I was looking for a female voice for ‘Piove musica’, which was not on the original mixtapebut that some fans have pulled from YouTube.
I wrote the piece when I was eighteen, and listening to it again made me want to record it again because it was spontaneous, free from musical and mental constructions. It was pure, that’s why I wanted to bring it back to life.. Gaia was necessary because It has a light timbre which in my idea was supposed to represent music”.
Freedom of expression
“Musica Cicatrene”, for Mezzosangue, is not a dive into the past, but a race towards the future. “I wanted to understand. I came back to see the house I was staying in at that timewhere I lived for seven years. I was looking for the origin of that short circuit we were talking about. It was more of a personal issue than a musical one. The songs in ‘Musica Cicatrene’ sound old to me, for many reasons – he concludes – and for me this is interesting: there are pieces born directly that work better than the super-worked ones. I don’t want to erase the past just because I was pissed off, I want to take the good of what I created. I asked myself: what can I reabsorb from that period? What light can I take with me? A reasoning also very much in line with my latest recording career. Simply put, at that time I didn’t have much of an audience, I didn’t have many eyes on me and this allowed me to say things with a rare freedom. This is exactly what I want to recover.”
