Who is Massimo Pericolo?

The first time I listened to Massimo Pericolo was on the occasion to his featuring in Lovegang’s Ugo Borghetti’s “Ansia”. I remember that I have remained impressed by his rapping, his bars, and his rhymes and his style that suggested me something new. So, at that moment, I searched his name on Google, discovering a different rapper, manifold and original for the Italian scene, with the deep lyricism of his French colleagues and the American rappers meter.

Who is Massimo Pericolo?

He is a guy from Brebbia, in the province of Varese, that, after two years in jail, has understood the obligated to give a turn at his own life, investing on rap. Just Massimo Pericolo’s past is our starting point: the two years in jail are the worst ending for a guy his age, but just this chapter of his life has allowed him to value certain street credibility only boasted by other rappers. Behind the bars, as I said, he has opened his eyes and has discovered him as a rapper, starting uploading his first songs since 2015, although his most famous tracks are those of 2017.

Speaking of rap, the Brebbia’s guy versatility shown is impressive. Starting from nothing and without a solid background behind him, Massimo hasn’t only shown important technical skills but he has mostly done it rapping in two very different ways: the first is violent and almost extreme, the second one is deeper and complex. His music is, according to his own definition coined on Instagram, “emodrill”, a mix of emotions spit on crude and arrogant beats just like in “7 miliardi”, or placid and melodic like in “Totoro”. In this sense, the instrumentals produced by Phra Crookers, with their hardcore and powerful basses, characterize all the artistic activity of Massimo Pericolo.

With the tracks, we need to include an essential element to understand perfectly the figure, videos. In that one of “7 Miliardi”, is clearly exposed a condemnation to police and Michele Uva's faces, while Massimo Pericolo is burning his electoral card down because “it’s useless”. The explicitly explains well that the guy in question is presenting himself to the great public with a clear project: going against the system and redeem himself.

What Massimo Pericolo rap?

The Massimo Pericolo-thinking's themes aren't a lot, but they are strong and direct. Prison, drug problems and police, the never standing family, State. We can found an example in “Miss”. Massimo Pericolo exposes at his maximum here, showing all his hanger and his unease because of his hard life. "My parents loved each other just before I was born" is an awful and tough bar, that represents a part of Massimo Pericolo's past, recounting of childhood without affections also remarked going on the lyrics. "Fuck the lever, we're already in jail" is a verse that arrives hard as a boxer's hook and includes one of the main points, the total skepticism for the institutions, mixed with a true disregard feeling for the law enforcement. The rapper openly deploys himself against all the law represents, also adding a no hidden warning message, translated in the words of “Cell without toilet” text: ”Justice does not solve my problems”. Finally, “I'm fine without the money for now, as long as I've got the broski I have something” is the summary bar of the condition of the rapper. Breakthrough at his way and together with his friends, what remains doesn't matter.

So, Alessandro Vanetti – this is his name -, approaches for his storytelling to another rapper, genuine and blunt like him, that he's making talk about him. I'm talking of Speranza, a rapper from Caserta that has started be a hit in the latest months with his shamelessly violent rap, but mostly honest, giving voice to the contest where he grew up and he lives. He prefers the more authentic Givova and Zeus tracksuits to the high fashion clothes. Indeed, thanks to their look, Speranza and Massimo Pericolo instill a real message, able to reflect their situation without masking it. It's thanks to these peculiarities, this “intellectual honesty”, that everyone is starting to notice two characters so different for the Italian rap game.

How will Massimo Pericolo become the next big thing of Italian rap?

With a different rap, impactful and directly proportional to his humor shifts, Massimo Pericolo will take the rap game in 2019. The colleagues' reactions are showing this too. Indeed, if Phra Crookers support isn't enough, the rapper from Brebbia is very estimated by all the Lovegang and, recently, by Salmo, who shares Massimo Pericolo's latest song “Sabbie d'oro” in an Instagram Story. Attention to Massimo Pericolo, not the umpteenth former prisoner who's finding some payback, but something more perhaps. An artist who has to say his opinion and has to teach its to everyone, after that everyone failed in teaching him something.