In the rap scene it is well known that Salmo and Noyz Narcos – with twenty-year solo careers behind them, but fresh from the collaborative album «CVLT», released in November 2023 – live they are among the strongest ever. The first, born in 1984 and originally from Olbia, is among the main responsible for the contamination of an entire genre, with continuous experimentations between rock, dubstep and music played; the second, born in Rome in 1979, is a cult name on the underground scene and has brought pleasant punk and horror streaks to a panorama that is usually too glossy.
Expectations for the first date of their summer tour, therefore, already started out very high. They were not ignored: in the new location of Fiera Milano Live, in front of over 30,000 people, a magnificent page of hip hop music was staged. Naked and raw, if we can say so: scenography reduced to a minimum to simulate the setting of a dark and slightly disturbing street, only two special guests (the superstar Lazza and the young Kid Yugi), two DJs to accompany them (Damianito and Genghis, also among the best in Italy). They are enough and more than enough to inflame the public, made up mainly of boys and girls over 25 from all over Italy, highly motivated and devoted; honorable mention to the guy who brandished a sign begging Noyz and Salmo to shave his hair, and in the end he is summoned to the stage and obliged.
The show is very tight, as are their rhymes: the two don’t miss a beat and don’t give each other even a moment’s respite. They also take the luxury of smiling at the new trap generations who clearly can’t keep up: Noyz Narcos ironically throws a dig at all their colleagues “with the track underneath”, who use sequences of pre-recorded voices to hide any defaults. Even if it is music made only with a microphone and a turntable, in fact, hip hop is not at all an easy genre to perform live, and the technique and tenacity of Noyz, Salmo, Damianito and Gengis are to be compared to those of a long-standing instrumental live band, which gives everything without ever sparing itself.
Their solo hits – «Russel Crowe», «1984» and La prima volta» for Salmo, «Verano Zombie», «Zoo de Roma» and «Drag Me To Hell» for Noyz – alternate with CVLT songs, while the Notably absent is «Overdose d’amore 2024», the updated version of Zucchero’s historic song released the day before yesterday, which remains out of the setlist.
Although it is often said that rap is the new pop, there is no desire to please the majority of Italian listeners in the show put on by Salmo and Noyz Narcos. Not in the sound, not in the look, nor in the messages of their songs and their speeches: if Salmo in «90min» takes it out on «the racists who listen to hip hop, something doesn’t add up» or with the strong powers that «open the accounts, but they close the ports”, Noyz harangues the crowds against the climate that has been felt in our area lately. «Hate is becoming a dangerous thing, don’t hate, don’t envy, be happy with what you have», he says before launching into the live version of «L’odio», a provocative song in which the two declare that they hate everything that Italians usually adore: football, free music, Iene, the homeland. There is no hatred or resentment in the people who sing in chorus with them, however, but only a great desire to live in a different country, less hypocritical or respectable. A country where the songs that reach the top of the charts are not necessarily love songs.
