Nitro: “Rap for me is education and entertainment”
Today Nicola Albera in art Nitro turns 31. His musical world of reference is that of hip hop. One after another she lined up five albums. The first, “Danger”in 2013 and the last, “Outsider”in 2023. And it is by suggesting that you read the review of the latter that we wish him a happy birthday.
Rap, rock, tight bars, enveloping productions, wild guitars, tense and dark atmospheres, dystopia, but also intimacy and the desire to delve inside, in search of a better version of oneself, are the many faces of the rapper. “Outisider”, the fifth album by the Vicenza singer, is a manifesto, in terms of sound and also of intent. Just listen to a song, which is a real blast, like “Control” and then get to the intense “Ti direi”, dedicated to his partner.
Very different songs, but both come from the gut. There are also more playful moments: “BMW” is a club banger. “Rap for me is education and entertainment. There can and must be both. I don’t like rap that only talks about social issues, but I don’t even like rap that doesn’t talk about shit so as not to bother anyone. There must be a balance,” she underlined in our interview.
It is important that in a market saturated with music, often more committed to pleasing than communicating, a voice like Nitro’s takes its space. In the album the artist’s two rap and rock souls are stitched together in 14 tracks that tell a journey. Between crude rhymes and more personal verses, there is the sign of personal growth and an exorcism: Nitro wrote this album after “Garbage”, a project released in the full black hole of the pandemic, which he failed to present and tell as he would have wanted. He transformed the anger and frustration of that moment into fuel, also working on himself. “Everything poured into this work. And I’m much better now thanks to writing this project. I think ‘Outsider’ is much darker than my previous records. We returned to a level of darkness that wasn’t even felt in ‘No comment’, an album in which I had written some more serene pieces. Here we are really in a return to the origins, to the basics”, he told Rockol.
Apart from Ernia, he chose only new generation names for the feats. “In many records of the past I played the part of the young man. I wanted to do my part, reciprocating on a generational level and giving trust to new talents,” she continued. Nitro, every time she releases a project, is always above the general average in attitude, technique and sound. “Outsider” is a focused album, which perhaps does not stand out for its novelty, but which once again photographs the talent of an artist in love with music, far from fashions, status and clichés.