Ketama126, perka Piero Baldini, returned with The caciara. The new single anticipates the next album and, above all, announces to the world the coming of a new ketama, a completely renewed artist and, potentially, still renewable, able to overcome most of the previous conceptions that we had on him and, in particular, on his poetics.
Now laid but energetic almost like a master Yoda Trasteverino, Ketama has opened the diary of a path that looks to the past and the rest of the world as parameters to redefine its present and its city. It is a path in proud, but the chiaroscurial tones, still marked by the trap, still present in the verse of the individual, already dilute in its most melodic refrain of all time, together with all the nuances of possible contradictions.
With Ketama126 we conversed of phenomenology of the caciara, but also of dissing between stornellators, dialect as a language of truth, of Piazza del Giubileo and alleys with the baretti, of grandmothers beta tester and what it means to grow without ever stopping playing, at least with the music.
For the sources of the Caciara There has been talk of the Roman folk tradition, of Stornellators, even by Claudio Villa. But how much, in what we have listened to is, however, the old high definition ketama, an increased ketama?
This is the music that I have always wanted to do and that, until today, I have not been able to afford to do. The caciara It is the first published piece that I can tell me fully proud and 100%proud. The first I could make my grandchildren listen to one day, if I ever have (hopefully!).
Why did you make trap until yesterday?
Ever since, boy, I have started making music, I've always wanted to be part of a band. To understand: I started playing the bass in a cover band. Then the rap years arrived and I embraced it both because it was going to be the greatest and and because they carry out a band requires money and time. It is not easy to put together five heads, in a study, around the same idea or even just around the same genre. So I started producing myself. My second musical desire.
This time made.
At the beginning I had few alternatives. Living substantially on the street, I certainly could not call who knows what instrumentalists. I used the computer. The trap also fascinated me because it was a concrete and viable way.
And today?
With a label like Sony behind it, which allows me to rent the study I prefer, to involve the musicians I want, the music changes.
We confirm that the production aspects of music, like many other forms of artistic expression (first of all: cinema), are intimately linked to poetics, and not always conflicting with it.
The vehicle is everything. Of necessity it becomes virtue, right?
The Italian trap is, also in the relatively small cases from the showcase, derivative, daughter of the American model. Instead the sources of the Caciara They are at 0 km. Growing also means knowing how to go home instead of always being out of it?
It is a path that I made starting from the end of the pandemic. With the return of the live and the reopening of the boundaries I began, for the first time, to travel outside Europe. I realized how much Italian culture is in the world, of how it is considered one of the most beautiful. Of what they tend to imitate us. I think of Frank Sinatra, for example, and the Italian or Italian-American origins of all Bianca American music. Instead today we are often the ones who copy the Americans, the South Americans, the African Americans, and it is a big shame. Back home, I said to myself: why do we have to hide our origins?
What if the riots were the grandparents of rap?
For the approach they had, without hair on the language, and for the people who represented, safe. The dissing were even made between them. They were also later compared to us rappers. Also for this reason, moving on to this new approach, at the level of poetics and imaginary, I had to make zero efforts.
What does “Caciara” mean for you?
I offer for: organized chaos that dominates the world. One tries to put his life in order or the things that happen around him but, as soon as he thinks he did, something happens immediately that makes him change.
So face the caciara is equivalent to admitting its limits?
The awareness of the caciara leads you to stop and detach it right for the time necessary to recognize your impotence in front of it. It is a small step but, if you don't do at least this, you can never evolve.
For the title of the individual you have chosen a dialectal expression and you wrote some verses in Romanesco. Do you use the dialect in everyday life, as well as in the artistic dimension?
I would say more in everyday life than in the artistic dimension. Even if I was born in Latina, I grew up in Rome and therefore the local dialect attacked me so much. I am like this: if I pass six months in Sicily, the Sicilian dialect is attacked. When one tries to give himself a tone, he avoids using dialect, but I love him because it is the language of truth.
Before even great references to the Roman popular song, such as Califano, Lando Fiorini or Gabriella Ferri, we think of the big bang of the poetry of the Roman people. Name Dropping: Trilussa.
Trilussa is great.
If Trilussa lived today and was a rapper, do you think you would collaborate? Or would he dedicate one of his dissing to you too?
I would spend to collaborate, even if a nice dissing would honor me anyway. Who knows, however, if Trilussa today would be the rapper. What do you know, maybe he would be a painter.
Your music seems to have become an introspective self -celebrating. Will one of the two editorial lines necessarily take over on the other?
I have always tried to reconcile the two. My favorite pieces are those in which I can balance them in one text. Being consistent in contradicting itself has always liked it, as well as going from vulgar and profane arguments to more internalized stuff, from materialism to spirituality. In particular, in the next album these contrasts will be the masters and not only from a thematic point of view, but also for music, with my voice sings on vintage music. In my opinion, even in other forms of art, such as painting, the more the artist manages to enclose the bass and the high, the more the art has succeeded.
In addition to the productive ones, have there been new existential conditions that made this change of step possible or even necessary?
Many things have changed on a personal level. Nothing striking or exceptional: they are things that happen to everyone, as finished relationships. I am 33 years old and it is the age when you start dealing with the past. Anyone with a minimum of consciousness makes a similar path. In contemporary music, especially in trap, there is a tendency to maintain the same mask that was worn when one's character began to work. But we all change and I have tried, naturally, to take this into account. It took time.
Was the first official step the soundtracks?
Yes and I am also writing another, for a very nice film that will be shot this summer and will be set in Rome.
What relationship do you have with spirituality?
For me, spirituality is the awareness of ourselves, which is an extremely important thing. And to understand that all that we do is nothing but a reaction to the world around us. This requires immense effort. It is very few times. The problem of spirituality, as, however, is often meant, is that something that can be bought in the supermarket, effortlessly, or a yoga course is considered. If you take a trip to the East, it is not said that you have become spiritual. This conception is the death of spirituality.
Have you ever had a conversation on your music with a grandfather? What do you think?
My grandmother is of the lower Lazio and I speak with her very often about my stuff. His favorite pieces are Very quietly And he went crazy for the latest single. At first he struggled to understand me but, especially with the new project, I am meeting the favor of the elderly. Paradoxically, the younger ones, the fourteen -year -olds worry more.
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Press photo
If it's good for your grandmother, good Caciara to everyone. In your musical imagination, is the city of Rome a starting point, a limit or a refuge?
All three things, based on situations. I often find that it is a limit but, at the same time, it is also an advantage. Rome is everything and it contains everything, and this is the slaughterhouse. It is good, evil, light -heartedness and melancholy. But you can get there a life without having concluded anything.
How important is the concept of friendship in the Roman music scene for you? Is it really an element of distinction with the rest of the Italian panorama?
More than friendship, I would speak of brotherhood and yes, distinguishes us from what happens in other contexts. This new album, however, will also speak a lot of solitude. Let's not forget that Rome is a city founded by two brothers, one of which has killed the other. Let's go back to the speech on totalizing Rome. It is home to great friendships but also of great betrayals. The most famous stabbing of the story happened here. So there is always the other side of the medal to be considered.
The construction sites for the Jubilee gave Rome very scenographic new squares, which are the urban planning nemesis of your 126 steps. How do you relations with platform Roma, invaded by tourists, open, bright?
The sparkling Rome in front, which falls into pieces behind, is the side that I suffer most of my city. It is the most beautiful city in the world but it is also ruined by the fact that we are the capital and we host our political class. Those squares are the architectural manifestation of what I hate in Rome.
And what is the part of Rome you love the most?
Perhaps the caciara, when it is a caciara that seems to have a glimmer of meaning and logic. Like its history, which is shown to you by every corner, from every street. The way in which its immensity dominates you, makes you feel small, but also great. The Roman has a mythomania inherent within itself, which makes it, in its own eyes, instinctively better but, at the same time aware of the fact that it will never be able to match or relive what has already been done. Being part of that myth is our curse.
What is the best place to observe the caciara of Rome?
I would say that the classic San Callisto bar is an excellent starting point. Or take a ride in Piazza Santa Maria [in Trastevere]: You will be immediately in the center between all love and hatred possible, in full emotional confusion.
Which verse would you dedicate to this Rome?
Without a doubt a verse from Caciara: “The cleaner has a mange”.