It's ten past two when Venc, one of the resident DJs, launches the last record of his set at the Opera Music Forum. The stage remains empty for a few seconds, just long enough for Gemitaiz and Madman to come on.
The crowd's scream explodes with the beat of the first piece that immediately makes it clear that it is "Fuori e dentro". Thus begins a showcase in the first of four dates of the Seven Urban Summit, an urban review in December in Cagliari.
Davide De Luca - Roman, aka Gemitaiz - and Pierfrancesco Botrugno - from Martina Franca, alias MadMan -, born in 1988, are two faces of the old hip-hop school with a clear and decisive background. Born in the underground, capable of breaking out of the niche and becoming mass phenomena in the best sense, collecting feats with many big names, even outside their own genre.
Gemitaiz, long-limbed, leather jacket and pants, unlaced combat boots, orange shirt and tattoos on his face, joins Madman, a street urchin who trots under the spotlights in a blue jacket, gray Represent T-shirt and baggy pants. The chemistry, even stylistic, is perfect and cemented by years of partnership. The audience, very young but also thirty-year-olds and over, about a thousand people, do not hold back. They sing, move, raise their hands, respond to the invitation to scream.
Gemitaiz is a pillar for several generations. “He brought America to Italy” by making many teenagers discover the music he recommended. MadMan drags with talent, reels off fast and robotic rhymes. Rhymes that coincide, straight beats and phrases that recall personal stories, dramas and deviations externalized and universalized.
The setlist - about an hour - accompanies the Opera on one of the coldest weekends of autumn. The rappers warm up, cover the spaces of the stage, talk every now and then but without sermons. They have been on the scene for twenty years and it is no coincidence that Gemitaiz asks the audience to raise their hands for those who were at his live ten years ago. The hands are not few, a sign that that thread has not broken. The DJ turns down the volume every now and then or applies a filter and the audience sings without hesitation. This communion of intent is not at all a given in a journey that touches many stations: Pistorius, Veleno 6, Hollywood, Bolla Papale with Madman's freestyle, Goal, Veleno 7, Toradol. "Ciao, amore ti mando un bacio" and the poetry of "Senza di me" begins. Explosive minutes alternate with emotional ones. Finale with "Blue Sky": "Pure empathy there is no way to cure it". "Because we are rap on demand" they said some time ago. A question to which Cagliari has answered, waiting for another big, as different as he is capable of going hype soon: Tony Effe. He will be at the Opera next Saturday, December 15th. And who knows, maybe the dissing with Fedez will start again from here...