Luchè
Malammore

"The further I go, the more the differences fade away
Both the ugly and the beautiful get full of themselves
Down here we pull, then the bike pops a wheelie
The wheel of fortune, but then everyone ends up in a mess
You hate multinationals like Coca Cola
But you have white stuff dripping from your nose: coca cola"

Luchè presented himself in 2016 as the most prominent Italian rapper on the scene. His verse in Marracash's "Sushi & Cocaina," recorded the previous year, remains one of the most vibrant and creative rap moments in recent history: punchline after punchline, poetry and irony, death and recklessness, raw chronicles. Having emerged with broken bones and bruised spirits from the breakup of Co Sang, by mid-decade Luchè was voraciously covering the distance that separated him from rediscovering himself, his sound, and his poetics.

"Malammore," released the following year, is one of the greatest Italian albums of this century. An impeccable production that smells of burning dumpsters, of rain-soaked alleys, of desperate coke clubs. Of Naples and Milan, by night. And over the beats flows a brilliantly shaped Luchè, a lover with a gun under the pillow, a gangster with a maroon heart.

"I wanted to be the blues of Chicago
I wanted to be the jazz of New Orleans"

"Violento" and "Il Mio Nome" carve, cut, knead rhymes like chewed meat. They are the two faces of raw poetry: violence and voluptuousness, blood and passion. But there are also the R&B caresses ("Fin Qui," with CoCo as the sacred keeper of melody), the pop breezes ("Quelli di Ieri") and the torrents of bitter rhymes ("Cos'hai Da Dire," "Il Mio Ricordo"). And you can even afford the Neapolitan cheek ("Per La mia città") in the end, if in the same album you feature street rap masterpieces like "E' Cumpagn Mie" and especially "O Primmo Ammore," a jewel of introspection on that sick love that ties you in a double knot to the arteries of the dirtiest street ("Tu m'he dato 'nu nomme/ Tu m'he dato 'na fede/ Quanno 'sti preghiere serveveno a poco").

All this without mentioning two grenades like "Bello," a hard bragging piece with Gue Pequeno, and "Che Dio Mi Benedica," a heartfelt ballad about lost love and forced friendship, a dagger carving the wrist on a slow curve. Then "Ti Amo" and "Andrò Via da Qui" remain as letters of a past period, stained with pain and never extinguished orgasms. "Malammore" is an album that encapsulates everything one could seek in an artistic experience: a journey into the author's sensitivity and a head-on collision with his passion. It's a work that, between a gram sold to Sgarbi and a reclaimed match, tells us of the cycle of fall and rebirth of a man, and everything that lies within.

"You misunderstand me because I come from Hell but promote Paradise
Because I don't speak well but know what to say
Because I'm extreme but have many values
Because I represent what you shouldn't be
Because I'm everything you don't know
Because someone told you what life is
And you listened"