Rkomi, at his own pace at the Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan

The “decreasing” that Rkomi has been talking about for some time, his “going back”making music and letting yourself be carried away in a genuine way by things, removing superstructures and not being too conditioned by numbers or results, it has the flavor of a run-up, the one you take, with your heart and mind, before tackling a marathon. Last June he canceled the arena tour to replace it with a theater tour entitled “Mirko in theaters 2025”to underline the need to tell one’s story in a different way, bringing the man first, then the artist, into the spotlight. After seeing him perform at the first stage of this adventure, in a sold out Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan, we can say this: artistically it was the right choice.

And the reasons do not emerge only from the structure of the live performance, but are intrinsically preserved in his latest album: “decrescendo.”, released last Maycoincides with an honest, crystalline, painful, brilliant personal story. It is his most intimate album and certainly one of the most authenticwhich deserved and deserves to be presented in places, such as theatres, where historically attempts have been made to train the superpower, unfortunately in crisis today, of listening and empathy. “Theaters have a soul. You feel it as soon as you enter: it is made of silences, of held breaths, of lights that come on slowly”explained the voice of Calvairate. “The show focuses on words, on the story. In an interlude I also wanted to involve actors, who will change at each date, to give strength to the narrative. I’m adding and learning new elements. At this moment in my career I needed a tour like this, I needed to find a home“, he explained after the evening. If then this choice to move from the bleachers to the red chairs turns into a appropriate and sustainable gesture also from a numerical and sales point of view, it will be possible to evaluate it more precisely once the tour is over, but it is fair to say that sometimes it is necessary, if not a duty, to try to escape the rush to x-ray TicketOne mapsand we should enjoy music for what it is, for what it transmits.

Rkomi, after having made several skids, sharp bends and U-turns in recent years, is today exactly on the path he wants to take. And you can understand this from the beginning, when the live performance begins, arriving from the audience, wrapped in a kimono, immersed among his fans, where he will dive back almost halfway through the show. During “tell you no.” after hugs, jumps and handshakes, he climbs onto the ledge that divides the gallery from the stalls, remaining in an almost precarious balancesinging from there and keeping those present in suspense. It’s an emotionally strong moment like that, when performing “Never again”who sees him trapped in a cage, “metaphor of people’s deprivations and expectations” from which he frees himself with “Ossigeno”. All the pieces, which together form the puzzle of his career, are presented with thoughtful arrangements by a great bandwhich deserved to be presented to the public.

We recover: Marco Spaggiari to musical direction and keyboards, Lorenzo Pisoni on the bass, Eugenio Cattini on the guitar, Elia Pastori on the battery, Daniele Raimondi on trumpet and sax, Micol Touadi and Marika Palluzzi to the choirs. The live performance is not without flaws: the balance between voice and instruments, in some situations, is unstableand the audio does not always arrive clean, add to this some smudges due to emotion. But apart from this, Rkomi’s performance at the Arcimboldi is a true and heartfelt live show, which touches emotional chords. Which comes. “The rhythm of things”, in this scenario, becomes a hymn and in fact it is also proposed an encore at the end: “I feel lucky to live in a part of the world where I can deal with my personal conflicts without finding myself directly involved in a larger conflictwhich in any case concerns us all.”

After peaking in 2021 with the award-winning “Taxi driver”along the way, came the X Factor, in which he took on the role of judge, the joint album with Irama and participation in Sanremo Festival in 2022 and 2025, where not everything went right and where rather than judged for “The rhythm of things” he was, in a petty way, targeted for his way of speaking, so much so that he felt “immobilized”, as he told us. Beyond this, the public has not always understood and digested everything he did and how he did it, “I perhaps shocked him” he admittedfor this reason seeing Rkomi, in the theater, no longer wearing anyone’s shoes, but simply be “Mirko”as he had set himself, can only be a great act of love towards truth and reconciliation with those who are in love with his pen and his precious way of telling his story.

Ladder:
I on earth/4Z
Milan bachata
Freediving for a while
I would like
Twenty years
Tickles
Seen from above
The rhythm of things
Gravity + Where the eyes cannot reach
You want a hand
Tell you no
Blue
Apnea
So small
There is no love (with Lazza)
Gates of Midnight
Second act
Never again
Oxygen
Ten girls
Hot water and lemon
Ten thousand voices
Bad memories (with Bresh)
Laugh at you
Starting from you
Unsurpassed
I’m happy at the seaside (with Sayf)
Full moon
The devil’s tail
New range
The rhythm of things