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Frankie Hi-NRG MC is undoubtedly one of the most atypical figures in the Italian music scene, an intellectual of rap (or one lent to rap) who has never established evident ties with the tricolor hip-hop scene and has over the years gained the approval of a mixed, heterogeneous audience, even quite far from the Double H world.
The success of Verba Manent, an essentially successful disc but still very tied to social centers and the posse phenomenon, is due precisely to its ability to range across various genres avoiding any type of cataloging, a characteristic typical of the rap of that period, a hybrid expressive form, confused and in search of its true personality (I refer specifically to the situation in the Bel Paese).
In 1997, after releasing a couple of tracks (“Cali di tensione” and the romantic “Fili”, built on a sample of the very famous “Questione di feeling”), Frankie produces La morte dei miracoli, a work that stands out from the previous one for a sound evolution and a greater depth in the writing of the texts. In other words, a decisive maturation.
It is difficult to make a comparison between the two works, conceived in very different historical periods, however, if the debut was fierce in tone and extremely varied sonically (ranging from jazz funk arrangements to breakbeat/hardcore flavored bases), the next chapter is more homogeneous and partly devoid of that revolutionary ardor that animated the debut.
La morte dei miracoli is indeed a disillusioned album, perhaps the most markedly hip-hop in the discography of Francesco Di Gesù (yes, that's his name).
The collaboration with a prominent figure of the Roman scene of the time, namely Ice One, influences not only the overall structure of the project but also the somewhat dark productions, partly curated by the former beatmaker of Colle der Fomento (the others are created by Frankie himself) and akin to that dark and obsessive style already experimented in Odio pieno (to me, they also remind of the contemporary LPs of Cypress Hill and Psycho Realm).
The haunting atmospheres seem to serve the lyrics of the protagonist, turned for the occasion into a bizarre hooded monk, halfway between Guglielmo da Baskerville and a prophet of the apocalypse.
This change is not limited to the CD booklet but concerns the themes and in general the approach to rap of the Turin MC.
The combative attitude of “Fight da Faida” is less present, although a piece like “Giù le mani da Caino” openly lashes out against the death penalty (“Keep your hands off Cain/Blood asks for blood and you respond to its call/You preach justice and then wallow in crime/Corrupt referee that decides the life of a fellow being”). Conversely, there are existentialist, reflective moments where the literary cut of the writing recalls the prose of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Elias Canetti (it's hard not to think of the book by the Bulgarian author when the distressing “Autodafé” starts, although the rapper denied a direct influence).
The change does not spare the formal aspect: parallel to the decrease in bpm and the gloominess of the beats, the rhymes become calmer, less agitated, at times similar to a monologue (the acute critique of television in “Accendimi…”, where the known appliance speaks, guilty of switching off the mind and anesthetizing our consciences), a confession, or spoken word. A courageous choice, which I find quite fitting even decades later.
So far I haven't mentioned “Quelli che benpensano”, because it is objectively difficult to describe a song that has fully entered the history of Italian music. The noir and somewhat minimal production of Ice One (who for the occasion “steals” the turntables from DJ Stile and replaces him for the scratches) merges perfectly with Frankie’s voice, measured and sharp at the same time. The lyrics are perfect, an accusation of the hypocrisies of those do-gooders who flaunt a mask in public and in private cultivate vices, hate, racism, and mediocrity (“There are many, arrogant with the weak, doormats with the powerful/They are replicants, they are all identical, look at them/They stand behind masks and you cannot distinguish them”). Noteworthy is the beautiful video directed by Manetti Bros. and the chorus sung by the talented Riccardo Sinigallia, a Roman singer-songwriter who deserved more luck in his career.
The surprises certainly do not end here. In the rich playlist, composed of fourteen tracks, there are some skits placed between one song and another, with enigmatic characters (“Cubetti tricolori”) or dystopian (the sci-fi ravings of “Manovra a tenaglia”). And that's not all: in the 1998 reissue, there are two remixes of “Quelli che benpensano” and as many of “Autodafé”, made by the aforementioned DJ Stile and Ice One (his work on the first track is remarkable, gaining power thanks to an excellent combination of menacing synths and sampled strings). Not to mention the ghost track, a further re-elaboration of “La cattura”.
This particular abundance unfortunately highlights the main flaw of La morte dei miracoli. Counting intros, outros, interludes, and bonus tracks, there are eight songs left, a fairly meager haul after such a long wait and a symptom of a compositional parsimony that will affect future discographic efforts. Additionally, the somberness of the music, combined with important themes, risks overly burdening the listening, without it resulting in boredom or obvious annoyance (at least in my case).
Excluding these small flaws, the second attempt by Frankie Hi-NRG MC definitely achieves its objectives and can be listed among the most significant of late-millennium Italian rap.
We are faced with a work in step with the times, rewarded by excellent sales (over one hundred and fifty thousand copies) and it does not matter if the Piedmont artist will not repeat himself in the future because La morte dei miracoli remains a fine album that every hip-hop and good music enthusiast should have in their collection.
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