Maury B
Book Of Rhymes

Simple and direct rhymes, solid and minimalist productions with a strong '90s flavor: "Book of Rhymes" represents exactly everything that Italian Rap DOES NOT need at the moment. Not because it's a bad album, on the contrary, at times it might even seem excellent.

The problem is that most of the tracks composing it seem to have arrived, wanting fifteen, maybe even twenty, years late compared to the evolution of Rap. Like it or not, Maury's flow streams over the instrumentals that various Shocca, Ice One, Crazeology, Bassi, and other lesser-known names provide him, with a naturalness and spontaneity that have had (and have) few equals in the history of Italian Rap. However, what makes three good quarters of the album almost unlistenable to me is an almost obsessive attachment to what we could call the "proud B-Boy rhetoric". Especially in the first part of the album, one is literally overwhelmed by phrases like "...I bring culture and style, my origins do not come by wire: they date back to the days of vinyl! Original old school, hardcore Turin, underground, true Hip-Hop written in our destiny..." ("Into the gate") or "...I write what I've lived, what I've read and for those who still believe it peace, love, and respect..." ("Universale"). Granted, the album's owner has been around for several years, and he can easily play the part of the old man who reprimands the youngsters, what I wonder is... Was there really a need? It is the writer's opinion that Hip-Hop, understood as a cultural movement and life philosophy, in Italy has been just a utopia. Pursued in good faith and with the best intentions perhaps, but still something that in practice turned out to be, and today is more than ever, an ideology devoid of concrete repercussions. Leaving aside the origins of the movement, which bordered on religious fanaticism (go and read the Zulu Nation statute to get an idea), the impression you get as you delve into the album is that Maury does nothing but reiterate worn-out concepts, celebrating an attitude and a way of interpreting Rap that were rather overused in the early '90s and today are decidedly dead and buried. I believe the best adjective to define the album is: anachronistic. This is also true for the purely musical aspect: "Life is good" samples perhaps for the millionth time "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" by Roy Ayers, but in general never goes beyond the classic "boom-cha-boom-boom-cha" beats, with the same sample in loop from the beginning to the end of the piece. Everything ends up inevitably feeling already heard and reheard.

It's sad to admit it, but with albums like this, it's difficult for Italian Rap to shake off the label of simply being a display of rhymed concepts, practically doable by anyone. Even where more introspective and critical points of view towards the world and society emerge, everything ends up exhausting itself in the most sterile hackneyed rhetoric. And it's even sadder when you realize that the purveyor of so many clichés is a Rap veteran nearing forty. I believe that more than ever right now, the Italian scene needs fresh ideas, a desire not to massify and conform to standards that are just placeholders, the courage to dare. And albums like this, as much as they might bring joy to nostalgics of the jam years, of Puma shoes with thick laces and fanzines, are the least useful for the cause circulating.