Papa V, Nerissima Serpe and Fritu are the “Trainspotting” of rap
“Mafia Slime 2” by Papa V and Nerissima Serpe, on the productions of Fritu, skilled sculptor of the sound of the two rappers, is a hallucinated, raw, ironic, surreal, cinematic, foul-mouthed record, in which pounding, sometimes dark electronic music , others warmer, draws you into a world in which conflicting feelings and disturbing visions are the glue that sticks to the listener. It’s a record with an underground flavour, but one that will make mainstream numbers because it offers a dive without a parachute into oblivion. Drugs, sex, street, love, comedy, politically incorrect jokes, nihilism, hunger for life: everything is blended into a gelatinous drink, like slime, understandably indigestible for many. Its generational strength is right there: it is a divisive album where Gino Paoli’s “four friends at the bar who wanted to change the world” become “four friends at the Chinese bar” who punch life. The acidic protagonists of “Trainspotting” could easily live inside “Mafia Slime 2”.
How did you meet?
Pope V: Nerissima Serpe and Fritu already worked together on rap songs. They come from the same village. I wrote back to Fritu after some time because we are cousins. I started to gravitate towards his studio and there, at a certain point, I met Neri. The beautiful thing between us is that we have things in common, but we are also very different.
Blackest Serpent: I don’t remember exactly when it all started, but certainly the differences between us are an added value because we have a vision that binds us, but it’s right that everyone brings the flow and their ideas into a piece .
What are the differences between the first and second chapters of “Mafia Slime”?
Fritu: The first (released in 2021, ed.) was much more immediate. We were all in quarantine for Covid, we couldn’t leave the house. We would meet in the studio, work on songs. We have worked on ten of them and published ten of them. This second chapter is more defined, it is a better product. If it were similar to the first one it would be a problem.
Blackest Serpent: Yes, I remember the times we worked on the first one. We were kids with no expectations. I had released the first solo project “Denti da latte”, Papa had only released a couple of singles. Now we are all at the same level, there is attention on all three. This second chapter arrives in a radically different period.
Pope V: At the time of the first chapter we didn’t have fans, we made that album spending thirty euros each (they smile, ed.). But now yes, there are people who listen to us, who come to our live shows.
How do you work? Do you arrive at the studio with something already written or do you let pure instinct guide you?
Pope V: There’s no one way, we just do it. I go free.
Blackest Serpent: I never wrote anything at home or outside the studio. Of course, we talk to each other, we exchange ideas, but the rest is total spontaneity.
Pope V: The truth is that as long as we are together and something happens. Once in Tenerife, another in Emilia Romagna: where we are we write and record. And then there is a healthy competition between me and Neri. If I hear that he made a killer verse, I want to rock too and surpass him.
Why “Mafia Slime”? What does it mean?
Blackest Serpent: Coming from the province, from a small context, true friends, the closest ones, are even more important to me. So for me “Mafia Slime” means “family”. Then it’s incredible that Papa and Fritu are cousins. We are all very united and to try to define this union, in our way, with our language, we use the terms “Mafia slime”. These are words that I wrote for the first time in my bedroom, then little by little the imagination grew.
Yours is an acidic and hallucinatory universe, populated largely by “boys without plans, they live life without glory or ties”, quoting your “In the hotel”. It is a crude world, but also ironic. Sometimes real, other times clearly exaggerated and not attributable to you as individuals. How would you tell it?
Pope V: It’s all life. The bars that define this world must be mine, I must feel them mine. You’re right when you say that certainly not everything we tell represents us or is us, but “if you don’t exaggerate, why should people care?”. It’s a phrase that Fibra said in an interview and that I fully agree with at this moment in my life. If someone tells me a normal life starring a guy who kisses his mother and goes to buy milk or bread, my reaction is: what the fuck do I care? But be careful: to talk about darker topics you need to know how to do it, there must be a pinch of truth, personal or otherwise, or people will immediately understand that what is being told is a comedy.
Blackest Serpent: The secret is that there is no secret. We are very simple guys in reality.
Pope V: There is no construction. We don’t write to go on the radio. If we do then we’ll be fine, but that’s not the goal.
Blackest Serpent: Furthermore, our imagination is very filmic. It’s not like if I say that I’m on the moon with thirty kilos of cocaine, then it’s true. I am not of that school of thought where we must tell the truth at all costs.
Also because if that were the case, if everything you say in the songs were true, you could only do this interview from prison.
(Laughter, ed.).
Pope V: Take the track “Vito Corleone”, it’s pure cinema. But we’re not mafiosi, we’re not joking.
Blackest Serpent: Sometimes we are misunderstood, described as if we were memes or stoners. But we are not like that. We know perfectly well what we are doing and why we do it.
Fritu: “Mafia Slime” is ultimately a journey.
I start again from this sentence from Fibra who quoted Pope V: “if you don’t exaggerate, why should people care?”. Why exaggerate?
Pope V: It’s a way to get noticed, to be disruptive. A lot of the stuff I wrote while drunk and it’s in the track exactly how I thought of it at the time. Then I tell you: I’m now interested in making music for street kids, I don’t want to hold back in language.
But let’s not beat around the bush: some of your songs can obviously be annoying or be labeled as in bad taste. Even very young people listen to you. Do you feel any responsibility when you write or not?
Blackest Serpent: On the one hand I feel like saying “fuck it, no, I don’t care”. On the other hand, I understand that the words of a song can also have the power to help people in difficulty. But I am not an educator, I am not a politician, my job is not to educate.
Pope V: I’ve always listened to Dogo and I didn’t end up doing loads of coke in the bathroom because they talked about that world. Music is one thing, reality and life are another. It is parents and schools who must educate, not rappers. It is the parents and the school who should provide the filters to understand a film or a song.
Does music have any weight in all this?
Pope V: For me, too much is given to him when it comes to these issues. Music doesn’t save lives, nor does it kill. Music is music. It’s doctors who save people’s lives, not singers. Even when I catch a kid fan trembling and looking at me saying: “Your music saved me”. I look at him and say: “Uncle, come on, let’s not exaggerate”. And this also applies to the other side of the coin: music does not destroy, it does not kill.
In “Mafia Slime 2” there are also some different and unexpected tracks: “A lei” is a love song, then there are “Bugie”, “Dritto al cuore” and “In hotel”. What do they represent for you?
Pope V: They are our favorite tracks.
Blackest Serpent: Do you know why they work? Precisely because in the other tracks we are raw. And so when these, more conscious ones arrive during listening, you are surprised.
Pope V: I hope that people understand and appreciate these songs and encourage us, also in terms of feedback, to follow this path more and more.
How important is irony in your pieces?
Blackest Serpent: Very, very much. We joke between us, we make fun of each other heavily, even with incorrect phrases which sometimes return in the songs.
Fritu, how did the sound of this project come about?
Fritu: All my influences are inside, there are many genres. I’ve never just focused on rapping. In my productions there is also an acid sound attributable to Berlin-inspired techno. There are dark tracks, but also lighter and funnier ones. For me it’s truly a journey.
In “Bugie” Nerissima raps “I wish everyone had someone who says the most uncomfortable and true things”. What value do you give to this sentence?
Blackest Serpent: In every relationship that works for me it’s like this. It’s like this between us: we tell each other what doesn’t work openly. But it’s like this between us and the public too: we don’t hold back, we even say inappropriate things in the songs.
Are there others that you recognize as similar to you?
Blackest Serpent: Simba La Rue, Baby Gang, Kid Yugi, I would say they are.
Pope V: Yes, but there aren’t many of us.
“Chinese Bar” is the total reversal of “Four Friends” by Gino Paoli. You rap: “We were four friends at the Chinese bar, many dreams, little money, we don’t go on holiday on holiday”. Did you do it consciously?
Pope V: I swear to you that none of us knew Paoli’s song in depth. When they pointed it out to us, we realized that we had certainly heard that “we were four friends at the bar” somewhere, but we didn’t know it was a piece by Paoli. Maybe I heard Metal Carter say it in a TruceKlan piece… I don’t remember.
Is the TruceKlan one of your points of reference?
Pope V: I’m more of a fan of Club Dogo. If you tell me “you have to go to the desert, which record are you taking with you?”, I’ll choose one of the Dogos. That said, I’m a super fan of Noyz Narcos who has always been the strongest of that group.
Blackest Serpent: Well, in terms of attitude, actually yes… to me they remind me of something acidic, a group of people locked in a room making music to rock. In this I see us again. Our “Wop Wop” reminds me of that TruceKlan world.
Pope V: I’m also a super fan of Fibra, especially the first albums, the ones in which he said harsh things like “I ate open lizards as a kid”. And then, among the inspirations, it is impossible not to mention “Mr.Simpatia”.
