Browse all

Re de Roma

We met Gianni Bismark to talk about Totti, Nike Gold and rapping in Rome

Re de Roma  We met Gianni Bismark to talk about Totti, Nike Gold and rapping in Rome
Photographer
Francesco Marchini

Gianni Bismark Gigou Martinez arrived in Rome just in time to win the last Scudetto for the Giallorossi. Those were the times of Batistuta and Montella, Samuel and Emerson, but the Uruguayan midfielder was able to gain the sympathy of the AS Roma supporters. It comes from here, in fact, the choice of the stage-name of Gianni Bismark, new school Roman rapper, very young but with a very recognizable identity that made him one of the best exponents of the Roman reborn. Gianni is fact in contact both with the members of the 126 and Dark Polo gang, two collectives that are changing forever the way music is meant in the Capital.

The entire aesthetics of Gianni is based on Rome and on the AS Roma. When he and DPG were not so famous, they entitled a song to Batistuta and in the next da, s it will be out his new song “Re de Roma”, dedicated to Francesco Totti. We met him to talk about this release, that teamed the one dedicated to the Captain by Nike, a special edition of the Tiempo named Totti X Roma and that celebrated the 25 years marriage between the number 10 and his city.

 

I wrote it three times until it was perfect, it is never easy to write something about you idol”, said Gianni speaking about the track. Deal with something “sacral” – as Totti is in Rome – it’s not simple ever for somebody born and raised in a very Roman environment and block “but my hood didn’t influence me on this thing, my father did everything”. But on something Gianni is very clear: “I think that the song expresses in a very immediate way what Totti means for me: Re de Roma”.

 

The writing skills of Gianni are very refined, even if in the telling of very easy stories, local. Gianni tells what he see on his streets, that he knows very well. In those streets the passion for rap is born: “I started writing and rapping two years ago, and it happened thanks to my frend and Sick Luke. I used to spent a lot of time in his study”. Now the future is by his side, a future made of dreams and memories.



The last words of our chats are on one of those memories: the Nike Air Max 97 Gold, one of the most famous Nike shoes, out since April 20th. The spreading of those shoes was immediate and pervasive, arriving in all the social layers of the cities. “Those were my favorite shoes, I remember a time made of friendship and carefreeness”.