The trilogy of albums with which Marracash revolutionized Italian music – Person (2019), Us, them, the others (2021) and the latest Peace is over (2024) – is truly complete: it’s out Something to believe in. My trilogy (Rizzoli), a book edited by Claudio Cabona in which Marracash himself connects the dots behind these three records, telling the behind-the-scenes, thoughts, relaunches and fears from 2019 to today. It is a compelling read – it is not a tome, inside there is a photographic account and the graphics clearly distinguish the rapper’s interventions from the journalist’s reconstructions – which closes the discussion. Both because it reconstructs in detail what is an epic destined to remain, for example by describing the crises, including them the end of the relationship with Elodie and the stadium tour gamble; and both because it traces the human parable of its author.

The rebirth of a “dead” artist

In the summer of 2019 – he tells it here – the climate around him was that of “a dead artist”: as a soloist he was missing from the album Status (2015), while a toxic relationship had paralyzed his career, with which he was essentially dissatisfied. The public had not yet deciphered his identity, unlike the various Fabri Fibra, Guè and Caparezza, his contemporaries whose artistic identity was very clear, beyond his success. With his back against the wall, he jumped without a parachute, writing Persona concept currently still in the charts, almost reaching half a million copies (an enormity today), but which at the time was a much bigger risk than its success, in retrospect, suggests. Each song corresponds to a part of the body, but there are two directions: pure introspection, for which Marracash lays himself bare as if on the analyst’s couch, and talks about the crisis; and a non-trivial criticism of capitalist society. All without abandoning the hip hop roots, but putting that style – the ferocious metrics, the joints, the road – at the service of a new model of rapper: no longer stereotyped and successful, but capable of learning from defeats and thinking about his role in society.

Ok, it will also be a question of timing, while many were starting to desert – and to use music as background – he put the load on everything. The fact is that precisely this deconstruction meant that millions of Italians saw themselves in him, finding him – in terms of content – almost like a modern singer-songwriter, an intellectual even. One of the models, in this sense, could be Kendrick Lamar, whose parable Marracash has followed in our country, for example with the Targa Tenco – the temple of songwriting Wellin which a rapper landed for the first time – for best album for the next one Us, them, the others (2022) or, after Peace is overwith the first stadium tour of an Italian rapper (2024). He opened the boundaries of the genre, somehow ennobled it and made it truly adult, for everyone, as demonstrated for example by the duet with Vasco Rossi in his Rain on Sunday (2022), an unthinkable goal for many colleagues today. OR the attempted honorary degreehowever a way to institutionalize it (again, a novelty for hip hop). But it’s not a discussion that ends with hip hop.

The secret of Marracash

The strength and secret of this trilogy – if Person it was the urgency of looking inside and Us, them, the othersborn in the midst of Covid, that of telling the world, and then closing with themselves in the world in Peace is over – are both methodological and content-related. Marracash is the best – or at least, the most important – thing that has happened to Italian music and its regression from the pandemic to date. Because it demonstrated that it is still possible to talk about the present without sounding barricade or dated, as in the case of a piece like Cosplayers. Because by recovering so much songwriting he showed that, yes, we have roots, but we can and must move forward, taking them into account. And then because it put mental health and our role in the West in general at the center. It is no coincidence that, beyond hits like Good at falling, Crazy love And ∞ LOVEwhich also pushed him so much on the radio, the most appreciated songs were Cruellaabout his toxic relationship, and Doubtsa true introspective manifesto of this new course. Common stories, but told with a different sensitivity.

Here is the secret to being able to see yourself inside them. A sign: this enormous success shows that people he wants of such music, that the records are not finished. Something to believe in. My trilogyfor its part, describes well how much these goals have been pondered, suffered, even just the result of taking risks. But Marracash must not remain an exception.