Laïoung: “There are rappers who do not realize the power of words”

Once upon a time there was 2016, a geological era does as regards the trap. Wanting to exaggerate, a bit like the 70s for rock and 80s for pop: the year of the successes of worship of Sfera Ebbasta, Ghali and Dark Polo Gang has already experienced revival and nostalgic celebrations, to which is added Today also the tribute of a young promise of that era in which Auto-Tune was revolutionary and Sanremo was in another galaxy.

Laïoung with the single 2016 He wants to pay homage to that magical year, and to remind everyone that it was among those who opened the way: “Noma start of the new Italy I was in the future”. And today, however, where the trapper born in Brussels is located by the Italian father and London mother of Sierraleone origin, that of the hit Young young and the piece-meme 6000 euros in which he claimed his artist's cachet (“six thousand euros or I do not speak / the interview for 2000 euros, the concert 20 thousand euros”)?

He tells us in this interview (free!), Leaving a halo of mystery on the period away from the spotlight – perhaps disagreements internal to the collective he founded Rrr Mob – and announcing great projects to recover the title of emperor (as he defines himself in the 'Last single). A sort of return to the future, therefore, 2016-2025, also at the risk of going countermish, trying to give the trans positive and pacifying messages …

The date is significant, 2016 is the year in which everything started, we are talking about a decade ago. Why did you choose this title for the single?
I know people are very fond of the sound of that year. It's a song that I did for my fans who wanted the lion that I was at the time of Young youngin an era where we were all happy without realizing it before Covid. All made with a touch of freshness and always with the awareness that my message is against drugs, against violence, against weapons, against discrimination and against any negativity. My messages are always positive.

From 2016 to today the trap has had enormous commercial growth. How did you live, what were you from the beginning, this evolution of the genre?
Unfortunately there are people who take the message of trap music to the letter, artists who do not realize that the power of words is very strong. You have to be careful what you sing because if you come from the street you don't have to stay there or take the curses of the road. In our life we ​​have the opportunity to choose. Every year, rapper die every month: crime and road are a starting point, not the purpose.

Does this awareness have to do with the aggression that you tell you have suffered in 2021 by some colleagues such as Rondodasosa, Sacky and Baby Gang?
No, but in the end you always have to look at the path of a musician: what did these artists do to arrive where they are? Have they become famous for their music or for the negativity they expressed?

“Rondo, if you have a problem with me we do a 1 against 1. Doing these things from cowardly, arriving with all these people to get angry does not make you a man.” This is the message that you entrusted to social media in 2021 after the assault aggression suffered outside a Milanese club. How did it go?
I have tried to talk several times with Rondo, and there has been no way. However, I wish him the best in what he does, because nothing is resolved with violence. With violence there is always someone who puts us back or sooner or later, and if you are angry it is as if you take a poison hoping that your enemy will die. I am in my high vibrations and I wish everyone the best …

Many of those you started with, from sphere to Ghali, have become famous, fill the buildings, as they say today. What did you miss to have their own success?
It was for me, I would have done also palazzetti, but they are not things that can be done alone. Now I finally have a team that really loves me, which is proud of my success and not envious. I know that it will help me get to high levels and to have the right attention, because there are a lot of new songs that I can't wait to make you listen.

Do you think someone who has been very successful today is you grateful to have opened the way?
I am happy to have been inspired for others in Italy. I did not grew here, I arrived in 2016 from Canada, and I made American music in Italian, bringing a new vision.

You continue to travel a lot, between the United States and Africa …
My family is throughout America, Florida, Texas. We originally from Sierra Leone are everywhere. The world is my study, a computer is enough for me. In this sense I am a citizen of the world.

Does Italy seem to be changed compared to 2016? Not only musically, in everyday life …
Violence has been marketed very much, instead we should focus on positive solutions.

Do you refer to the success of the various baby gangs and Simba La Rue?
No, I refer to the messages that are promoted in the songs, and that sometimes do not reflect the realities we have in Italy. But then they go to influence the youngest. We as artists should influence positively, not negatively.

How do they influence young people?
Can I tell you the truth? I feel more safe in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro that in Corso Buenos Aires in Milan. And in the Corso Buenos Aires area they are at home because it is full of bars, restaurants, Somali and Eritrean hairdressers. The problem is that before it was given respect for having it, and now this rule no longer exists. When I find myself on the other side of the ocean, in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, in the most dangerous favelas in the world, the 14 -year -old children who go around with the Walkie talkie and the AK 47 on the broken motorcycles make us enter when we arrive with the 'Uber with heated lights and lowered glass. Because we are foreigners and we are bringing to a place that is one of the most dangerous in the world, where however there are principles.

When are you talking about lack of respect for the youngest, do you refer to the so -called maranza?
I used this word three albums ago: “Other than carabinieri / I am with Arabs and Blacks / Real Maranza only”. I have always tried to enhance us Africans and African Italians. I come from a good family, but when mine decided not to support me in making music, I found myself on the street. Fortunately, I didn't make wrong choices: I was a maranza who made music.

Africans and African Italians are still not very represented in today's trap …
Yes, but it is not Italy's fault. We have to look at colonialism if we want to understand why we are back. Because France, England, Spain and Portugal have colonized much more than us. In '98, when I went to Ostuni to live with my grandparents after the separation of my parents, I was the first black in my school. I had to redo the first grade when I was 6 years old and I suffered the ignorance that was there and that can be called racism.

You listened to Guè that in Oh my mom Pino Daniele champion? You had brought Pino Daniele to the hip hop world revisiting Je so 'crazy in Out In 2017 …
I am pleased to these things, because it is not veo that Italy does not have a sound, as they say. We have to look to the 1960s, at the '70s up to 2000. In Italy there were beautiful songs …

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In 2016 You say that ten years ago you were in the future. Today?
I'm in 2036.

And what will we listen to in 2036?
Less things with Auto-Tune, people will have to learn to sing. Everyone is afraid of artificial intelligence, but it will not be able to remove the work, it will be able to help professionals when they have blocks of inspiration.

You have always done rap and trap playing …
I play the piano and guitar. I am producer, engineer, producer and writer, as Americans have always done, think of Kanye West or Travis Scott. The people who put their hands in the dough manage to create a very original art.

What can we expect after this single?
I'm developing two different projects. The first has to do with 2016 And it is, as you said, a return to the future. The second is a new sound that is coming: I am bringing news to Italy, as I have already done in the past.

Could we also imagine a featuring with Rondodasosa or Baby Gang, with whom you had heavy disagreements in the past?
When they are ready, I'm here.