Lou X
A Volte Ritorno

THE REVIEW

" <<...you're not a b-boy like us...>> someone says. No dramas, I don't even understand what they're saying to me. In fact... Because the real problems are serious, and I have fun with those who mimic the little black freaks..."

Who is Luig(g)i? A bastard with neither God nor State, his own words. A coarse guy from Pescara who speaks in bad Italian filled with Abruzzese. He doesn't care about the metrics, doesn't play with words, couldn't care less about being noticed for his style. He's resentful and spits out his dissent into a microphone, period. It's not even always clear who he's mad at, to be honest. What emerges from his tracks is a deep and general sense of distrust towards society and the forces of order, along with a disinterest in the dynamics of the Italian rap scene, to which he feels he doesn't belong at all. His friends show up to do the choruses, maybe a little verse, and that's more than enough.

If lyrically the album is dirty and rough, musically it's no different. His partner Disastro's beats are minimalistic, abrasive, dark but undoubtedly powerful. They fully bear the weight of their twenty-five years and that's just fine: drums prominent, bass sometimes barely audible, at most a couple of samples looped and that's it. Amidst invectives and some ruckus with the locals, you might even stumble upon a vivid and touching story: Cinque Minuti Di Paura, a story of drug addiction and marginalization that hits you straight in the gut like a Tyson uppercut when he was in shape. Devastating, beautiful, with a sadness so authentic and unpretentious that it leaves you speechless.

"A Volte Ritorno" has to be taken as it is: a work from which much more instinct than reason emerges, angry, naive, and ignorant. Packed with communicative urgency even when it doesn't quite know what and how to communicate it, and precisely because of this, it can have a greater impact than much of the rap of the time that fundamentally talked to itself about itself. Recently reissued by Sony despite the author having quit long ago.