The invitation promised a “Rutti talks”, from the title of his latest song, presented at the Concertone on May 1st and then published with Warner Music: a non-press conference at the headquarters of the new record company, but on the other hand Morgan has always been someone who has never loved the conventions of the music industry. The song was a protest in music against these same mechanisms, but here we are, at the headquarters of the major: “I’m thrilled, I’ve been away from the record industry for years”, he begins, introduced by his friend and journalist Luca De Gennaro, who interviews him behind a red drape – in the background there is a keyboard ready to be played and on the wall an emoji that reproduces his face.
It is the first face-to-face meeting between the artist and the media after his stormy exit from X Factor last year: in between, a presentation of the single “Sì, sicuro, l’amore” was planned (but cancelled) and then a virtual press conference in November via a WhatsApp group, an experiment that ended in various controversies and the expulsion of almost all the journalists (including Rockol).
Today, however, there is no controversy, as if that period were the distant past. Instead, he tells what happened to him in general in these years: “I did more popularization of music than music”, says Morgan. “I wrote a lot, a song a day, it’s as if I had 18 records in my hands. I made my own path, disconnected from reality, I know nothing of what happened outside. I’m like a musical sarcophagus, a mummy like an alien”.
From X Factor to “Rutti” (passing through Sanremo)
In retracing his path in recent years, Morgan also passes by his TV experiences, from the Sanremo with Bluvertigo and the solo one in 2010, which he considers the negative watershed for his career: “There I was eliminated preventively for an interview, a shot of the system: it marked a before and after, before I was clean and pure. A phase began: I am still the same but the perception of me has changed”, he explains.
Today he defines himself as a grapholinguist, he says he has worked on words and on graphic experiments.
To demonstrate this, he takes a video out of his computer in which he transformed one of his performances on “Ballando con le stelle” (“The only non-musical TV program I’ve done”) into a sort of psychedelic video clip reminiscent of Krisma’s experiments. “What a mess,” he comments at the end.
Then he recalls his other experiments, from the audiobook published in 2019 (“the most beautiful thing I’ve done”) to a book on the perfect song that he’s been working on for some time. But what changed everything, he says, was television: “it’s a good opportunity. I started with MTV, then X Factor came along: at the first edition I proposed doing unreleased songs. The record companies were interested but too much, they forgot that there was something else. This is also why I broke away from the record industry and stopped publishing”. He dodges the controversy of the latest X Factor (“I didn’t know anything about the people I ended up arguing with”)
The return to traditional discography: only singles
At a certain point, “Rutti talks” is brought back to the history of the song; the reason for the return to the discography is precisely “Rutti”: “I wanted to title it differently, in any way but this. And it’s strange to me that it’s precisely this song that marks my return: I wrote it recently, it’s not one of those things that I’ve accumulated over time. I found this text that I didn’t remember. I thought of arranging it as if it were De André”. Morgan says he sent it to Pico Cibelli, head of Warner, who replied “It’s a hit”. From there, everything started again. “I love the discography, it’s the song industry. I want to dialogue with this music that you call songs, which for me are not. I haven’t heard songs made with interesting chords for many years: all the trap songs have the same chords as ‘No woman no cry’”.
The project is not limited to these songs, but will continue with singles and not with albums: “Today everything has changed, we think about songs and short songs. ‘Rutti’ is an absurdly short song, two minutes. Music is not measured by the meter, I like the 8-minute ones and the complexity, but today this is one of the parameters. Today it is a new life: unlike some colleagues I want to dialogue with this new world and understand if I can bring some healthy principles to the old one”.
And the album?
Morgan doesn’t rule out the album: “Of course I’m thinking about it, I have 18 ready”, he jokes. There was a new album, already announced, with a title: “…E quindi insomma ossia”, written with Pasquale Panella. The first single and an EP with different versions of “Sì, sicuro, l’amore” have been released. But what will become of that album, in light of the new contract? “Now we’ve talked about a facet of my artistic life, my existence, my artistic history, but there are also other sides. One of these is the work I’ve done with Panella, which is awesome, really awesome. I never write lyrics with others, I had a great epiphany when Panella sent me his comments for one of my books. The natural thing was to sing them, transform them into songs. So I have this album in my hands, which for me is an incredible asset”. Morgan then sings a song about it, “Menzogna e giardino” but that work has been suspended indefinitely, to concentrate on the singles.
The rest (and the next single)
During the hour and a half of chat there was also time for some extra-musical digressions, but less than expected.
A few jokes about the current X Factor jury (Agnelli was called to be his replacement, he explains, about Jake La Furia he says “If he’s as good as Guè, with whom I worked on The Voice …” and about Paola Iezzi he recalls that he advised her not to publish “Vamos a bailar”, which later became a hit), for a comment on the acquittal in the case against Bugo (“I have to thank the lawyers who studied so hard: this is the victory of commitment. I am innocent and this is important, because I relied on the truth. I want to make peace with Bugo because I am at peace”). He has television projects with Rai: a program on Rai3 in access prime time, 6 episodes a week in the space of “Via dei Matti numero zero” by Stefano Bollani and Corrado Augias. About Sanremo he says “everyone tries” but says that in the end Carlo Conti is not so different from Amadeus, with whom he was openly polemical. “I am experimentally reinserted into a situation, let’s see what it can give birth to”.
The next release could be a song with Achille Lauro and Chiello. “But who knows? I’m having fun with this singles thing. I have 18 albums ready, I could release one every two days…”
