Mahmood: “In ‘Ghettolimpo’ my life between myth and harsh reality”

“Ghettolimpo is a middle way, halfway between mortals and immortals. In this record no one is immortal and no one is a simple human but everyone is committed to facing the unattainable on the one hand and the crudest and most everyday reality on the other” . Mahmood explains that behind his new album ‘Ghettolimpo’, due out on 11 June, there is above all “a great passion for Greek mythology”. For the young singer-songwriter, born Alessandro Mahmoud, who quickly became one of the most interesting and successful artistic personalities of the new pop scene, the album comes after a new important recognition, that of the Italian cinematographic Olympus, with Nanni Moretti who has chose his ‘Soldi’ (the piece with which Sanremo won in 2019) as the soundtrack of a short with which the director wanted to celebrate, together with his actresses, the announcement of the presence of the film ‘Tre Piani’ in competition at Cannes . “I did not know anything about the choice of Nanni Moretti. I knew it when he published the video on social networks. Of course I am very happy and honored. And I am very curious to see the film ‘Tre Piani'”, he says before diving into the story of the album. A record born long before the pandemic: “When the quarantine began I wrote little or nothing. Closed at home I have a hard time writing. On the contrary, it is a record that tells a lot about the journey, I wrote it while traveling. Some lyrics were born. on airplanes, like ‘Baci dalla Tunisia’, which was the first piece of ‘Ghettolimpo’ to see the light “, says Mahmood. “The record is also affected by the path I took to return to recognize myself. After Sanremo my life had completely changed and I needed to go back to look at Alessandro in the mirror, recognizing him”, underlines the artist explaining the choice to put on the cover of the album “a sort of Narcissus on the contrary” that is reflected in the water and sees a kind of monster reflected. A narcissus that Mahmood mentions in the title track ‘Ghettolimpo’, where he sings among other things “Success hurts your head / If you think you’re not up to it”. In the disc each song tells a character or a group of characters, as in the case of ‘Dei’, dedicated to the divinities who populate Olympus. But there is one that is particularly close to Mahmood’s heart: it is called ‘T’Amo’ and it is the song that Alessandro Mahmoud dedicated to his Sardinian mother, also inserting passages in the dialect of the island. “I have always talked about my Arab origins but never about Sardinian ones. And I had never written a piece for my mother, who naturally started to cry as soon as she heard it. Thanks to my Sardinian cousin I inserted a choir that sings in dialect. This song represents my roots, my mother “. Of which he sings: “With me you saw all the worst before cash” and “It is not easy to grow up alone / Who half reminds you of the man who left you”. Anticipated by the singles ‘Inuyasha’ (gold record), ‘Klan’ and ‘Zero’, a song that is part of the soundtrack of the homonymous Netflix original series of which he also edited an episode as music supervisor, ‘Ghettolimpo’ contains two precious featuring: one with Elisa in ‘Rubini’ and the other with Woodkid in ‘Karma’, a multifaceted international artist, who also produced the song. “I have made a lot of featuring but many are not on the record. Maybe I’ll release them later. I didn’t want to fill my second featuring album: the feat is an important thing, the artist who does it must have his space . So we only put the two that were consistent with the genesis and narrative of this record, “explains Mahmood. On Elisa he adds: “I have always had an immense esteem for her. ‘Rubini’ was born from the audition of one of her pieces that she had entrusted to Universal for others to sing. I listened to it and wanted it. I asked if we could work on it together. And so the song that is on the record was born “, he underlines. In the album, Mahmood involved some of the best producers in circulation: Muut, Francesco Fugazza, Francesco ‘Katoo’ Catitti and authors such as Davide Petrella, Salvatore Sini and of course Dardust, born Dario Faini, with whom he has been collaborating for years. “Dario – says Mahmood – has done a quarter of the disc if not more. He taught me a lot. Before working with him I was much more immature. We often compare ourselves for a long time, because he wants to fill everything and I want to remove . But anyway it is he who has ‘turned’ so many pieces of this record “. Mahmood is known for the attention and care of every aspect of the work related to the disc, including the development of the aesthetic imaginary: from the costumes – with the close collaboration with Riccardo Tisci, who created for him two dresses exclusively for Inuyasha – to the choices of direction and significant places, scenery of the video clips. Which have a strong international connotation in the staging, as in the enthralling choreography of ‘Klan’, curated by Carlos Diaz Gandia, which sees Mahmood dance for the first time. by Antonella Nesi