The rap passes from Varese and starts from the bottom, and it is good to remember it. Interview with Thief – Rockon.it

Article by Marzia Picciano | Photo of Rossella Mele

When I met Thiefat the registry office Antonio Speranzosoyoung rapper ('95) of Vareseat the Rondó bar in Milan, area viale Monza (or rather, the “in” area of ​​Viale Monza, Nolo), he was at the release of the song How much is worth with Claver Gold (Honiro LabelDecember 2024), I knew very little of Italian rap if not the key messages repeated as a Payoff almost nostalgic in newspapers and IGs (summarized in: By now there is only the trap, nobody is more rap) that were to be opposed to the short Peace has ended Of Marracash (and the same payoffs shouted to the Savior of the genre) and the surreal debacle on the New Year's concert between Rome between Tony Effe And Gualtieri.

(Open parenthesis: I say surreal not to take a position between two factions, but because in fact the context was decidedly surreal.)

Everything to say: I knew little about it, I came to compare myself with even more uncertain thief. I could or learn, or look at the void. But then, from that chat, time passed. Has passed Sanremo, Tony Effe he tried to clean up in an unlikely version of calipano tattooed and unjusted, while they showed up on stage Shablo, Gué, Joshua and Tormento with that total nineties piece that is My word (“A very rooted piece, where Soul, RNB, all the genres of the ERB fathers were“, He says Thief) and therefore also Neffed who took the opportunity to launch his return. In short: it happened a lot, yet I convinced myself that in all this chaos of beautiful and bad things you understand little about what happens when it comes to rap.

Paradoxically, I can understand much better Thief from our coffee of Bar Rondó. To explain it well, however, I have to take several steps back, and give a little context.

Frame Thief, and Varese

Antonio Thief hopeful He was born and grows (physically, artistically) in Varese, where he begins to make himself known in the hip hop Varesina scene not even of age, starting to record the first pieces in 2011. In those years he says, he participated in the first jam, and records the Late Night Studio Of Mocce“Which should have today located in Milan. That was a fairly focal meeting point for all artists, who still conveyed a little inside those years“.” In 2020 his first album came out, Poetic licensebut already in 2014 he had three releases to the property, where he collaborated with many names, from Michel Metrostars, DJ P-Kut. “I keep 2014 as I start when I published a mixtape for a site of that time that in short, Chiavarese Giants no longer exists. My musical Christmas are there.”

Has opened concerts of names like OTR, En? Gma And Two Fingerz and More. In 2018 he opened the only Italian date of the European tour of Havoc of Mobb Deepalways in Varese. In short, he has always been working with that world Rap-Hip Hop who has a “historic” city as his epicenter as he says, who is absolutely not secondary to the Milanese scene, on the contrary. “A city with a strong centrality had a strong influence on the Italian pop in general, therefore with historical groups such as OTR, undertone, etc.“.”

A place with a strong community, however. “In those years yes, then slowly it evolved. Now there are different realities, perhaps not as then, but at the same time active. There are new collectives from a point of view of evenings and events. The thing is a calm and attempt during the post pandemic, as in all working fields in general, but still maintains a certain identity“.”

Thief has always had the attitude of writing. “I played the battery, so I had a little fixed this union between rhythm, because basically the battery is rhythm, and the words, through the rhyme in particular, in short, I found the right combination in rap. Therefore I had these these two focus, within a single container which was rap“.” A natural stylistic choice, also for social experience.It represented for us a possibility of expressing us, coming from a province. Because Varese is the center, but I come from Malnate, which is a few steps away. In short, it also collected the items of the province a little.“

Cursed province, or blessed

The concept and provincial context play a non -secondary role for Thief. “Attending more Milan I realize that, albeit perhaps as the crow flies, we are not so distant, certainly in life-style, in the possibilities, but also the vibrations of the people are different. The province remains a little more hidden and stimulates the expression“.”

Not a new concept, it is not taken for granted to rap. “You are stimulated to look inside you, because in any case what you see outside is always the same scenario. I do it practically every day. I come from a background of workers' families. Where I live I call it dormitory: it is basically populated by frontier bombers who work in Switzerland, so tend to experience the country is sleeping, waking up, producing, going and returning from another country … The experience of the city is practically nothing: at 10 is the desert. This fairly rigid routine forces you to look at you well.“

It shows it in the piece with Claver Gold. What is worth speaks precisely in self -harm inculcated in the ego of those who face this boredom, when trying to get out of it by favoring the appearance often something that is not. “In the piece I face this concept by talking about sewer, precisely for a dynamic speech: it is as if we were swallowed. So boredom is one of the problems. ThereAnd A social fabric, although we are precisely a relatively small reality, and is a very slender, not frayed social fabric. Children and generations after somehow the same things we did, with perhaps a component of boredom and repression, I dare say, even greater“.”

Talk about rap, before and after

How did Thief come to this collaboration, what interpretation to give this effort?

“With a lot, a great desire to beat, surely to be there, because in the end the concept that is the common denominator of hip hop culture is “be there, or be squared”. Being there or not existing, basically a bit by taking up the pioneering history of New York, where the boys of the Bronxone of the Del Queens or of Harlemjust writing their name on a train that went to the center of New York was a bit like going out, then going under the lights of the city, then finding an identity “, admitting that he had put him some names on the Trenord too, moreover. But it wasn't his way.

If we look at this and the strong conscience that in Thief's work is in what he does, it is almost natural to make a comparison with today. “Maybe a little the difference between that and today is that only fifteen years ago there was much more need to express itself that then, basically, to make a career. Then he became a business, perhaps today the most profitable business of Italian music, where they all look to Urban, to Trap in general. But before it was truly a code.“

Why is it the most profitable business? “Surely because it is accessible a bit to everyone, and this is the positive part. In the end in America he is an Afro-Latin boy who was printed a disc alone, who perhaps put up with two plates or rather than two turntable at home, cut loops of James Brown or Miles DavisI know, and from that he created a base where he could express himself in with scratch, with words. ” Same thing for graffiti, the break dance etc. “It is very accessible, it really allows everyone, even with few means, today even more, to do, and with a profit margin“.”

Potentially infinite? I would add. I think about what we listen to today, a Sanremo With Gué in the race. Or the production of pieces all similar. And not necessarily rap.

“There is also an entrepreneurial speech, from what I see. In the sense: the musical market is in crisis, a bit like publishing and other sectors. So to take fewer risks, there is a bit the solution to say: ok, what does it work? There is nothing wrong, Picasso also copied. But then you have to be good not to make this thing feel, you have to elaborate. You can make the cage to a writer to learn his style, but then you cannot write badly, nor exactly like the Ágota Kristóf. That is your cage, that your reference is not to be noticed“.”

And then there is the trap, and not only

A bit like for the trap? “It is preferred as always risking, in quotes, on what I already know that it works, I already know that it is a bit the wave, which is the wave trap that we have experienced in these 10 years. That then, when in Italy they started listening to the trap, I realized that I listened to six seven years earlier. Take the movement of Atlanta. YOU he did a record, it's called Trap Musik. It does not seem to me anything new, on the contrary to get after something that already on the other side of the ocean perhaps no longer remember.“

While they work very well here. “Because obviously there are those who put a spotlight on it, reinterpret it in its own way, and in any case made the suburbs speak in this way, perhaps it has incorporated other styles that could be theirs“.” Between cultural appropriation and hit chart, in fact a community has been created.I remember the tsar of that time then went to dance in the disco, while we maybe on Saturday, we went to the Gem in turn, we were at the park, to raporar, to Farstyle and so on. So (the phenomenon of TRAP NB) made more users enter, even the Tsar who went to the disco on Saturday evening could be reviewed anyway in a language that previously perhaps mistreated saying: but where do you go with those wide pants?”

For Thief has become a more acceptable cosmopolitan phenomenon. Something that likes and sells. “We must always wish it. We must take care of that what we do has a potential, that is, a newspaper is written to be read, a disc is written to be listened to. Maybe there is less quality search. With social media, let's see how the point of view has changed. We take the photos vertically, not horizontally because maybe we were used to TV. But you look more at quantity more than quality because you always have to be there, so even two weeks you must have the means to go out“.”

A matter of solitude

Even if then, if you look good to earn, they are less and less. And for how today the music is enjoyed, as you listen to, it is increasingly complex that the system changes, even if the genre has expanded its audience.

“Perhaps because the boys today have access only to liquid music. It is simply a faster world, so you first buy a good sound card and a good microphone that maybe organize yourself in a group. And we return to the speech of the social fabric. Today's problem is solitude. This leads people to be more sun. Today, however, they warn this thing even more, and in my opinion the problem is a little wider, that of solitude. People grouped less, do less union and consequently you cannot make music together. Instead there are many small realities, as I said even before, who try to emulate: I try every every day, and we see where I arrive“.

What to expect from Thief Instead we will know soon. In February his new single with video was released, CHILDRENproduced by Yazee. And we talk about live in summer. And for the future of rap? For Thief already see Torment And Varese in Sanremo with a different and very nice soul funk piece marks how indelible the grip on the mainstream is. But now you have to give him a sequel.