Rayden
C.A.L.M.A.

I know that writing a hip hop review (especially an Italian one!!) on DeBaser is not ideal, as the comments are often negative and sometimes written by people who haven't even tried to listen to the album (debasers, how do you comment on such an album?!?..well), people full of prejudices and preconceptions. They say hip hop is crap, sure, like much of today's music, but there is still something good, just as there is in music and thus in hip hop. You can't wear blinders (or in this case earplugs); you can't generalize, because even in this genre there are still those who have something to say (without following the usual pseudo-gangsta stereotypes) and do it in a way that moves you.

One of these is definitely the Turin-based mc Rayden, a member of One Mic and already appreciated for his skills in national freestyle battles. "C.A.L.M.A." is his solo debut, an challenging, dark, introspective album like the track that opens the album, "IntroVerso," where Rayden briefly introduces himself and says "I write myself to understand myself," and indeed throughout the album, Rayden seems to use rap as a form of exorcism, to fight his own demons and ghosts, and it seems there are quite a few. Throughout the album, one senses this unease, this anxiety, certainly amplified by our artist's very dark and claustrophobic voice, which he uses without ever shouting, in a very calm, almost whispering way, and perhaps only in this does he find the calmness of the title. Because, as I said before, Rayden seems anything but a calm young man at peace with himself. "I have drafts that are the harakiri of my certainties, my fears, tortures, ugliness, bitterness, deformations, and the lightness of being" always from "IntroVerso," and it is this that permeates the album. Then there's the stunning title track, in my opinion, full of historical and literary references "voicing Erasmus' madness" and "who remembers? 'Young Italy' is a faded page in history books," or "In truth, I've already seen two popes, terrorism, people drugged with mediocrity, it doesn't go, those of my age have the ideals of the condemned in Limbo," almost a social criticism where he says that to him, just the minimum wage of happiness would be enough (and who wouldn't settle for that). This is cultured rap, Rayden has an extensive vocabulary, indeed the lyrics are striking, but the beats also sound good and are perfectly in tune with the mc's voice and what he has to say, dark and nocturnal bases for this inner journey.

Rayden also talks about love in "Chiedime se," but of course, he does it his way, not experienced serenely. The text is sublime "I'd like the keys to your world to enter, then close it and throw them away, to stay," or again, "I have deep, truthful thoughts, I live in too many worlds, in too many dreams you were there, you sink me into regrets, the specific weight of memories I can't quantify." In "Marco" (the artist's real name), an autobiographical piece where he talks about his life in the province, family, school, first loves "now I understand, now, she was only the first of the women who changed me, for the worse, now I've realized it, then vices and excesses that have never totalized me," and it's understood that it wasn't a serene adolescence. He continues saying about himself "too cerebral, skeptical, badly taken, I have no prospects, I've lost the spirit immersed in the deep blue of your eyes," and concludes "my ethics are heretical, the angles of the soul are not smoothed, I persist and call me Christ because I've given my life for those who don't deserve it." There is nothing in this album of the modern hip hop stereotype; it is a decadent album, challenging, to be listened to attentively, certainly not to put on at a party, a difficult album like the person who composed it, which closes with a kind of rhymed testament "Non arrivo a Domani," where he says "your words in my chest have the effect of hemlock I feel it the poisoning arrives the soul goes adrift, in panic without an escape there is no perspective it's a picture of the '300 before the Renaissance," and where he admits that "resentment has grown so big that I can't contain it anymore," all on a stunning base with a chorus (what an ugly word) that pierces you.

I recommend it to everyone who wants to listen to some good music that still moves, who wants to dig into their soul, fighting their own demons and finally freeing themselves. Don’t stop at appearances, don’t have prejudices with music, listen and then judge. Greetings to all the debasers.