Music, the return of Flaminio Maphia: “Today rap no longer exists, acid girls do”

Thirty years have passed since G-Max and Rude (later to become Flaminio Maphia) met in Piazzale Flaminio together with a large group of kids who came to the center from the outskirts of Rome to rap, dance, graffiti and “pick up”. Thirty years of life “live”, which now ends in a new album entitled “Live”, and in a celebratory concert (3 May at the Wishlist Club in via dei Volsci in the San Lorenzo district). From the end of the Eighties to today G-Max has lived his life in the spotlight, moving from music to TV and cinema, as an actor and author, before returning to his first love (which he never forgets), music . Times change and the name also changes: from Flaminio Maphia to Flaminio and that’s it.

G-Max, what happened in the meantime?
«To understand it we need to go back to the origins. We were the first to bring hip hop to Italy from America. The first to rhyme in Italian. Local rap was born right in Piazzale Flaminio. We added Maphia, with the ph, in an ironic way. Because, at the time, our country, abroad, ended up in the “pizza, mafia and mandolin” stereotypes. Thus the name Flaminio Maphia was born. Today, the world has changed a lot. We are no longer branded as “mafia and mandolin”, so we simply start from Flaminio.”

In that multicultural and multiracial square, everything started. What was your world like then?
«In Piazzale Flaminio, where there was a metro and train stop, kids easily arrived from all the suburbs: from Prenestina to Casilina, from Prima Porta to Città deiRagazzi. Rude came from Bravetta, I from Donna Olimpia. Mostly they were foreigners: Nigerians, Eritreans, Somalis. But then the children of the ambassadors from Chateaubriand (a private French school, ed.) also arrived and they happened to invite us to their parties. Then when we destroyed their house they no longer invited us… (laughs). From there the song “Spaccamo tutto” was born. We were a sort of baby gang back then.”

How did your music come about?
«We told about our afternoons on the street, the parties, our stories. We wrote rhymes in the afternoon, then in the evening at the disco we went on stage and sang them to impress the girls. More and more often they asked us to sing during those evenings.”

When did the real turning point come?
«I went to visit a Nigerian friend in Turin and forgot a cassette where we had recorded our free styles, rhymes made on the fly. One day I received a phone call, it was a record producer who had heard our music by chance and he asked me: “Do you feel like doing it again in the studio?”. I didn’t have to be told twice, we were already in Turin.”

The stroke of luck came later, however…
«In 2001 we were giving up because we couldn’t emerge anyway. But then “Resurrezione” came out in collaboration with Riccardo Sinigallia (who works with Max Gazzé, Niccolò Fabi and Tiromancino), and we signed with Virgin. But nothing, we didn’t take off. In 2003, we worked in radio, at RTL. I asked Claudio Cecchetto for help. By contract we had to release another single, after “Bada”. I said to Claudio: “Listen to the record, and tell me which piece we can choose”. He massacred the whole album for me and told me that only “Ragazze sour” was saved. It was our true fortune.”

Then, there was the participation in Sanremo with Califano in 2005. How do you remember that experience?
«Califano had the same approach to music as us, he went from ironic pieces to much deeper ones. He probably saw in us an evolution of his music. We sang together “I do not exclude the return”. I still have a wonderful memory of Franco, who we continued to hang out with for another 4-5 years, also taking part in his concerts. He was a borderline character but one of the most beautiful and profound people he has ever known. He had an incredible tenderness and a great loneliness inside.”

What has changed in music in the last thirty years?
«Rap no longer exists (but the sours are still there). Sometimes I think it has become anachronistic at fifty to continue to propose pieces from our repertoire. But they keep calling us for concerts and people have fun.”

Will he stop rapping then?
«Nothing can replace the adrenaline of the stage and the relationship with the audience. I haven’t written music for ten years but I will continue to be on stage. In the meantime I’m thinking about other projects. I’m writing a book that tells my life from the age of 5 until my success with Flaminio Maphia and I hope it becomes a theater show, a “One man show”. But my biggest dream is to transform the Flaminio story into a musical. From now on a new page opens where everything is possible. And, as Califano said, I don’t rule out returning.”