Overflowing debut of Luigi "Lou X" Martelli, rapper from Tortoreto, Abruzzo, whose name is a tribute to Malcolm X. His first studio album is produced by the Cordata label, managed by Forte Prenestino, a left-wing social center of Rome, on the proposal of the Assalti Frontali group. The project took about two years to complete, together with the producer Marco "Disastro" Fioritoni, credited as co-author. Rapper King is the only guest of the CD, in "Italia", a remix of a song from three years earlier featured in the "Rap presaglia" demo.
The project breathes the air of Public Enemy. DJ Disastro's production is aggressive, hard and heavy, close to the East Coast tight music, dense with layered samples, however, the absence of a real mixing doesn't reward the final sound, and most of the inserted samples are lost in the background noise. Lyrically, Lou X mainly writes political verses, the album is almost entirely socio-political with some conscious excerpts, some lyrics aren't immediately understandable and the rapper performs them with a hardcore, confident, robust delivery style.
It's not a canonical record, there are 10 songs, about 34 minutes, an intro in the middle of the tracklist and an outro that are actually two true tracks like the others. It's made by two kids, Lou X is barely twenty, Disastro is a teenager. It's difficult to describe the immense influence of this work: it's an impressive, raw, tough, rough, angry and urgent debut, with which Lou X distances himself from the shady pseudo-politics and the useless militancy of the left-wing social centers, to create a much stronger, unleashed and combative document, which elevates him among the best exponents of hardcore hip-hop in Italy.
Rating: 8/10.
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