{"id":15470,"date":"2026-06-15T14:25:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strettoblaster.com\/?p=15470"},"modified":"2026-06-16T11:14:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T10:14:19","slug":"pepe-nocciola-interview-rap-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strettoblaster.com\/it\/pieces\/pepe-nocciola-interview-rap-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Pepe Nocciola and the rap life on the hills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hip-Hop is never boring if seen from the countryside <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The multiplication of rap stylistics in contemporary society – post-internet, algorithmic, hyper-produced – has led to results that are, at best, uneven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most cases, the outcome is far less interesting than it would like to appear. Flat, when observed with even a minimum of historical perspective. Identical to a thousand others, lacking any distinctive traits of its own, more interested in replicating a code than actually shifting it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, for several non-digital-native generations, the approach to hip-hop culture \u2014 and to rap in particular \u2014 came precisely from there: from the originality of form, from the freedom of content, from sonic research, from the possibility of communicating in a non-orthodox way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that\u2019s also why so many people today struggle to find material genuinely worth their ears, except for those happy enough with yet another copy of a copy of Griselda<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, today we bring you a small example dangerously displaced toward the opposite end of the modern national-popular hip-hop spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To enter the journey, all you need is a grandmother\u2019s checkered blanket, a pair of binoculars, and some earbuds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riding jazzy beats and soulful grooves, you move from the drug-dealing square that so many still declaim to a hill. A sort of reassuring, crooked daisy age made of birdwatching, province, suffering, redemption, and personal research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does it all sound too good to be true?
Maybe that\u2019s because you don\u2019t know Pepe Nocciola<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All good. What is a Marileno?<\/strong>

Good question. I think about it all the time, constantly. I don\u2019t know what a Marileno is. A Marileno is a Marileno. A village guy, but I don\u2019t know; it\u2019s genuinely hard to explain. It has almost become an adjective, a way of doing things: \u201cthat track is Marileno,\u201d \u201cwhat a Marileno outfit<\/em>.\u201d I don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean: now I\u2019m doing a video interview with a pimple in the middle of my forehead, so I\u2019m really a Marileno.

It all obviously starts from my little village, where there\u2019s this masculine version of the name Marilena. To me, Marilena really sounds like the name of a countryside lady from a small village. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around here, I\u2019d never heard Marileno used in the masculine, but it carries the idea. I imagine someone in a long floral dress, in the kitchen, cooking, then going out, taking a little walk through the village, buying bread. And that\u2019s it, I\u2019m a Marileno. It\u2019s a very broad concept, but in the end a lot of people recognise themselves in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would you like to start this interview?<\/strong>

Randomly, like everything I do. I\u2019d say it already started when Marileno was trying to get the computer to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did a Marileno come to feel like everybody\u2019s brother? Can you be everybody\u2019s brother?<\/strong>

Fuck, you can. Yes, that\u2019s interesting. Because then, as a consequence, everybody becomes your brother. That\u2019s a cool thing. It\u2019s also a way of demystifying the rapper thing a bit, the street name thing and all the rest.

In fact, I recently wrote some bars: let\u2019s teach Italian rappers how to smile. Meaning: let\u2019s demystify this thing a bit by using birth names in tracks, almost like a brotherhood.

We\u2019re all brothers. There\u2019s your brother Stefano, then there\u2019s my brother Davide who makes my beats, there\u2019s brother Alberto, the other G-Farmer who came back from Barcelona, so now I also always have brother Alberto around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to be everybody\u2019s brother; it\u2019s almost impossible. But I\u2019m noticing there are a lot of brothers. It\u2019s beautiful: brother Flavio, brother Pietro, who would be Karlino Princip<\/a>…Incredible. Big stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Karlino<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You arrived on the scene like a wellness slogan machine: \u201clife is a blessing,\u201d \u201clife is a gift.\u201d What\u2019s behind the catchphrase?<\/strong>

Interesting. This is interesting. \u201cLife is a blessing<\/em>\u201d then became \u201clife is a gift,\u201d then basically what remained was \u201clife is\u2026\u201d dot dot dot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was talking about it yesterday with someone, with brothers, obviously: brother Frediano and brother Federico. This slogan thing comes from atrocious suffering. I\u2019m alive by some miracle, so \u201clife is a gift,\u201d your brother Stefano says.

For me, \u201clife is a gift\u201d means that I enjoy the small things. As Karlino also says: we became heroes of ordinary living. I\u2019m up in the hills, and I enjoy spending seven hours watching a robin puff up its chest. That\u2019s beautiful; life is a gift in that sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything really is given to you. But the concept behind it is much wider and comes from years and years of suffering, illnesses, things. It\u2019s a lively concept, a chunky one. It sounds banal, Marileno, because \u201clife is a gift\u201d is a very Marilena thing. But you agree with me that life is a gift.

Hip hop was born urban, city-based, in a way. You, instead, tell and live the province, for once, as a conquest more than as a cage. What\u2019s your relationship with that?<\/strong>

Interesting, also because lately this idea of the province has come back strongly. But I\u2019d like to explode the concept even more, because there\u2019s province and province. There\u2019s the province of Milan, there\u2019s the province of Cuneo, and then there are even more scattered towns that make up the whole Italian province. Those are properly hardcore provinces.

It all comes from that lostness of the last few years, when I came back to the village because of force majeure<\/em>. At first, it was total hate: felt like prison, cage, I needed help. Then it became a hate-love situation. Now it\u2019s unconditional love. It\u2019s beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Incredible. Tell me, isn’t life a gift? I just popped a pimple, as a proper Marileno, as if I really am a damn Marileno. Incredible. How are you?”<\/em><\/p>Pepe Nocciola<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


The question is: where have you been beyond the village?<\/strong>

That\u2019s the most Marilena thing of all: I\u2019ve been to Cuneo, twenty minutes away. I lived on my own in Cuneo. Never lived abroad. For a while I tortured myself; I told myself: damn, I\u2019m missing this thing, I\u2019ve never lived abroad. Then I understood that I already travel a lot by being alone in San Martino di Busca, up in the hills.

I come from Pluto, another planet. But the village has truly become my strength. This thing is beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then hip-hop and rap are children of the historical period we\u2019re living in. With the frenzy, the post-pandemic period, social media, we all slowed down and reinvented ourselves a little. Everything is very fast now, but we human beings can\u2019t go that fast. If you don\u2019t slow down a little, you explode. You crash.

How was Pepe Nocciola born? Before Pepe Nocciola, what was there? The first thing I heard from you was \u201cBagnetto verde<\/em>\u201d, and I thought: f*ck, I\u2019m not the only one making random kitchen rhymes. But\u2026what before that?<\/strong>

Before that, there were things here in the province, with G-Farmers, which is a collective that brought together big names from the Cuneo scene. Like La Loggia, you know? Rings a bell? Sei Giovani Prestanti, quite a historic group around here.

Already back then we were starting to do twenty different things. I did my first live with Dave, with NSC, Nuova Stirpe Crew, which basically is a bit of the DNA of G-Farmers and everything else. It was 2002, 2003, 2006, now I don\u2019t remember exactly, but those years.

I\u2019ve always written rhymes like a madman. But coming from deep province, the means were what they were: recording yourself, doing live shows, organising things was a mess, as we all know.

After years and years of random things, and also after various heavy stuff, I said: I\u2019ll make rhymes, I\u2019ll record, let\u2019s go. I\u2019ve been writing rhymes since middle school. But lately, after force majeure things, diagnoses, various stuff, I said: I\u2019m doing this. Done. And so I\u2019m a crazy Marileno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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