Kaos — Fastidio

Debut album by Marco Fiorito aka Kaos, first breakdancer, then writer, finally MC. He's considered to be one of the pioneers of hip-hop in Italy, having started in 1984. After releasing two albums in English with Radical Stuff and collaborating with Sangue Misto and Colle der Fomento, in 1996 Kaos releases his first solo album and his first in Italian. The guests are Sangue Misto members Neffa, Deda and DJ Gruff aka Lowdy NCN, as well as ex Radical Stuff Sean. The production is almost entirely created by Neffa aka Piscopo, one beat each is created by DJ Skizo and Deda.

Piscopo's boom bap production is good, at times excellent, and lives up to a simple formula: dry and hard midtempo drum, beautiful deep bass line, elegant jazz loop (often there's a piano or strings), dark and gloomy touches, self-referential samples and tributes, and other samples to build or accompany the hook. Kaos is comfortable on these types of beats and delivers with an instantly distinct, raw, rough, dirty and rusty hardcore rapping style: he boasts a resigned and resentful flow, so not all words are understandable and his disillusioned style, wrapped around a jazzy and dark atmosphere of light melancholy, sounds controlled in its most urgent moments and can seem almost mumbling in its calmer moments.

The lyrics find a home in common topics for underground artists, such as bragging, battle rap, personal struggles, socio-political bars and complaints about how wack other rappers are and how mainstream artists have no respect for hip-hop, despite the generous profits they make by pretending to be part of that culture. The rapper from Caserta, who grew up in Milan, dedicates a third of his album to diss some of the biggest clowns who infest the scene: "Meglio che scendi" is a diss track to Tormento of Sottotono, and in particular a response from guest Neffa to "Di tormento ce n'è uno", "Ora non ridi più" and "Fino alla fine" are aimed to J-Ax of Articolo 31 and "L'antidoto" is dedicated to Jovanotti. Two of these are masterpiece songs, some of the best of the year in Italy.

“Meglio che scendi” features a perfect iconic sample, a sad, melancholic and dark piano keys, combined with dry and grime midtempo drums. Kaos comes in and delivers with one of his sharpest, hardcore, flows therefore the iconic hook is composed of Neffa and Galante samples. On the second verse, Neffa enters completely laid-back, totally relaxed, almost in spoken-word / mumble, technically poor (even if he has the bold to state the exact opposite in the same verse) and he closes by quoting himself in a bar that is accidentally legendary. The diss is closed by Kaos with a third verse.

The remix is also an easy winner, thanks to a mix that makes the sound clearer than the original. The boom bap is dry, the drum is hard, heavy, dirty, dusty, perfect, it marries and honeymoons with Kaos' ruthless hardcore rap that kills the cut. Even that bleakly plaintive hook from Neffa sounds better here than on the original, I personally believe that Deda aka Katzuma has succeeded in the difficult task of surpassing the original.

"Domani sarà peggio" is one of the most popular pieces in Kaos' catalogue. Neffa offers a dreamy soundscape, performing a masterful job, after all he was much better as a producer than as a rapper. The boy pulls out an iconic sample from the song of the same name that serves as the theme to the 1975 television miniseries "Gamma", composed by the musician Enrico Simonetti and whose single also became a great commercial success and later the composer's best-known song. Magnificent violin loop, xmas bells of buckwildian matrix, calm, clear, ice-cold, lucid delivery by Kaos, in one of his most personal tracks. After the first bars the drum falls, dry, hard, tough, midtempo, relentless. The hook is simple and is accompanied by the sad sax loop, finally the rhythm breathes for a minute. Classic cut.

Among the remaining choices, I think "Solo per un giorno" deserves a mention: the hook is simple and clear, with a sample that comes directly from Vanoni ("Domani è un altro giorno") combined with one from Neffa. Candid boom bap, melodic jazzy sample, hard dry midtempo drum, silky bass line, dirty, raw, rough rapping by the author. Kaos does some battle rap, throws in some random political and socio-political lines and in some situations he seems to turn into his own personal version of Nas' "Street Dreams" without street, but the song is mostly the same old story, that is, he's a pure hardcore b-boy proud guy and the others are wack who don't represent as much as him who hasn't yet earned from this rap thing, despite the fact that he's spitting bars over Vanoni and quoting Pausini.

Released by DJ Gruff's Zerostress Records in 1996, this album should be an excellent masterpiece. In some moments it is. And it's a classic in Italian hip-hop. Nonetheless, the album isn't one banger after another, one killer track after another. There are four superlative cuts (two are dissings and one is a remix of a dissing), the rest of the album is quite normal, if we take into consideration the standards of the US scene.

Rating: 8/10.