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What has happened to Geolier in recent months is, in fact, a process of nationalpopularization with few similar to these levels: much by choice and a minimum of inertia, since he participated in Sanremo in February he has become an artist of all; of those, in short, who are in the background of any discussion, belong to parents and children, unite bourgeois and working-class neighborhoods, and ok, they are the business of generation Z, but they are also of interest to others, more than what happens in Lazza and certainly in a more profound way than Sfera Ebbasta, which for many is still a mysterious, inexplicable object. Geolier no, Geolier everyone saw him at work at the Ariston, with I’m for me, you’re for you – who added dance to a much darker and trap sound – took the last step he was missing to gain acceptance everywhere, that is, radio play. The risk is the usual one: getting burned, distorted, emptied; become, well, one of many.
The rap that speaks to everyone
The new album God knows certifies this passage of imagination and perception, but has to deal with several ghosts, which do not end with the fact that, in order not to betray himself, he still sings in dialect. The discussion goes further, in the sense that the previous one The courage of children, despite being the best-selling of 2023, was a work aimed at a specific segment of the public, mainly Neapolitans for the possibility of seeing each other again and representation, in which Geolier is a champion, and very young people in general, who immediately found themselves in his language – moreover going beyond many anti-Southern antipathies that came out in Sanremo – of street stories and the wisdom of a child prodigy, who grew up quickly, but also with a look, lyrics and values that lean more towards the good boy than the gangster. Well, not this time, we have to deal with everyone, trivially with all age groups throughout Italy, despite the dialect. And then, if before there were 18 pieces, now there are even 21, and considering that there is a half year of work behind it it seems like a Fordist assembly line (in the middle there should also have been an intergenerational album with Luchè, which already seems ready but perhaps postponed to a later date, anyway).
And instead. And instead Geolier holds his ground, indeed he demonstrates that having opened the windows – in the right way, to the right extent – has done him good. God knows it is a mature album, in the sense of more varied and compact, centered, than The courage of children, which in the long run was claustrophobic, talking over each other and not going beyond genres. Which, mind you, was fortunate, but perhaps Geolier was the first to understand that there was a need to get out of it. And this, well, comes out of it, even if the main talent remains that of keeping himself within a strictly rap framework, with a work imbued with hip hop culture – of which Geolier is passionate, adept, even a scholar, which is why he was immediately blessed by colleagues of the previous generation. But beyond that there is everything else that allows him to stand out from the others, from the influences of Neapolitan popular music, neomelodic above all (romantic lyrics, choruses), to the Latin and electronic music already seen in Sanremo. Respect, again, to a Lazza, who with 100 messages it aspires to become a sort of new classic, and there’s nothing wrong with it, Geolier does something that’s partly even riskier: he infects his world with what goes around, in a dangerous balancing act, which however holds up.
Even the songs containing the big numbers, which in theory should guarantee the numbers, keep the bar straight enough compared to what has been done so far, to A life with Shiva (perhaps the most pop episode of the lot, it must be said) a Clear ideas with Lazza himself and I swear to you with Sfera Ebbasta. The only, proverbial step forward that you can chew is the infamous one Last poem with Ultimo, a sort of Frankenstein’s monster that on, let’s say, urban terrain seeks a point of contact between two worlds, at least sound, distant, and in the end does not satisfy anyone. In particular Geolier, who elsewhere on the album demonstrates that he is at ease with the melody, but evidently less so with the tradition represented by Ultimo. The counterproof, among other things, is in the fact that precisely Last poem it’s a sort of eco-monster, which has nothing to do with it, immersed in a dense and lively landscape, where love songs, introspective ones, announced hits and real hammering alternate, excluding beats with even country impulses. In short, everything that is asked, today, of a more or less urban record.
Geolier’s secret
Or rather, not even. That is, such discs can also be reconstructed in the laboratory, with a scale, and it is not on these scales of measurement that, in the end, the success of a Geolier is calculated, nor what will certainly come God knows. If anything, it is in an idea of purity that envelops everything, and goes from the fact that the album was promoted in Naples, with the people of the neighborhoods he grew up with, and not with interviews, and reaches the lyrics of the album themselves , which talk less about the road and more about feelings, decisions, stones to remove, having made it and staying humble. It comes naturally: grow and succeed, but don’t change. He repeats it more or less explicitly, he owes everything to what has happened so far and he is not here to betray himself. The point is that he doesn’t just talk, he actually does it. On the other hand, there were two ways to capitalize on an enormous and heralded talent like his: to act with legitimate corporateism, or to remain glued to the roots, accepting sacrifices; he chose the second path, and it’s more enjoyable that way.
