Baby Gang: “Pride is everything.” Interview with the trapper under house arrest in the community

This article is published in the 28-29 issue of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 19 July 2023

dfter a series of hairpin bends, at the end of an isolated cobblestone street, the view of the a stately villa from the 1600swith sumptuous park and private dock on the eastern shore of Lake Como. The doors of the Art Nouveau facade are open and there are no bars on the windows. This place welcomes guests under house arrest, in foster care or in recovery. Today those of Il Gabbiano therapeutic community there are 24 of them, two women and 22 men, who are learning to manage freedom. The youngest is Baby Gang, born Zaccaria Mouhibfor everyone here Zac, for those who are out «the criminal trapper» with millions of listens on Spotify. Italian-Moroccan, he has just turned 22, «more than half spent inside“, tells. Al Gabbiano, two thousand square meters, he arrived in March directly from the Monza prisonwhere he served the first six months of the 46 that touch him for a robbery (armed), not the first. He cannot go out without the permission of the judge, even visits are prohibited unless authorised.

At that time he cuts the grass, does the cleaning, doesn’t cook but stops to contemplate nature. «The activities are divided among the guests», explains Francesca, one of the eight educators. «The rules are those of coexistence in a student residence».
Zacharias room, a double, is on the top floor, the fourth, the only one without porches. You pass the first with the library, the second and third with an exhibition of drying racks and cloths. The tidiness of his room is striking: the Versace bathrobe hanging, the bed made to perfection, the YouTube plaque for the million subscriptions reached leaning on the wall, the boxes of Fendi, Gucci and Supreme accessories displayed with geometric rigor. It is in full view on the desk his second album in vinyl version, Innocentreleased with No parlo tanto/Warner Music Italy on May 26: 14 tracks and a string of prestigious collaborations of the caliber of Lazza, Ghali, Emis Killa and Guè.

Zaccaria, however, prefers to go back down and sit on the terrace. Perhaps to smoke one cigarette after another. He’s wearing basketball shorts and a baseball cap, the indispensable purse and the white T-shirt. The left arm houses a series of tattoos: “The right hand must remain free, because it represents the future, clean,” he says. And then he continues with the explanation of the tattoos: «The first is the inscription ACAB, stands for All cops are bastardsall cops are bastards: I did it as soon as I got out of a police station at 15. The second is another writing in capital letters: fuck policeafter a bad episode with a patrol car… blows, slaps, bam bam bamas in the PlayStation video game GTA San Andreas. I tattooed my mother’s initial by myself in jail: needle, pen and pain. Here I have the dollar sign, here the face of a carabiniere, then the word sauvage and the hand of Fatima, i.e my maternal grandmother, disabled, who raised me. She is my mother and my mother is like a sister».

Zaccaria’s family album is leafed through quickly. “For a long time I didn’t have a great relationship with my parents. They separated when I was one year old. My father is not who brought me into the world, but who was there, and that is my mother’s partner, a patient man, I respect him. We have always lived in overcrowded two-room apartmentsin Calolziocorte (in the Lecco areaed), where I was born: there were also my grandparents, three uncles… I had to make a reservation to go to the bathroom. Quarrels were the order of the day, to call the carabinieri, who have known me since I was a child. At ten I couldn’t take it anymore and I ran away for goodin Turin, after some dress rehearsals: two or three nights away from home sleeping on trains, around. I had this habit, I had to steal: I didn’t want to be the poorest of the poor, I couldn’t be teased about my shoes with holes or Spiderman’s backpack by those who had nothing. Eventually they have me
caught at H&M e brought directly into the community. I fled after a while. I entered and fled, I was in and out, like this since 2012. And the escapes were the worst moments: without water, without food, without money, without documents. Like a stowaway. I walked through the bushes, hitchhiked, waited for buses that never came.”

The first time in prison at 15 years old, at the juvenile penal institution of Bologna. «But they immediately transferred me to the Beccaria in Milan to get closer to the family. I wasn’t bad at it, I’m honest. Indeed, it was my habitat, more than the community. The roles simplified the stay: I the prisoner, you the guard who locks me and opens the cell, we don’t have to talk ».
It is there that Zaccaria met don Claudio Burgio, 54 years old, most of whom spent welcoming children in difficulty. She has blue eyes like the lake behind us and the smile of someone who smiles at life. He came to see Baby, often calls him that, who he kept in touch with. He is a friend rather than a spiritual guide. «The first memory I have of him is his gaze», says the don. «I could see nothing else: he was lying in bed, wrapped in blankets, very thin, he disappeared into it. For months he kept me at a distance: bold and fragile, is not one to deliver his story easily. And the prison experience didn’t help: it is not a place to develop a positive identityrather where to confirm a criminal identity, a stigma Zac already felt as a child. One day she asked me to come to my community, Kayrós, in Vimodrone. I asked him: “What project do you have in mind?”. Answer: music. I think then he only put one song on YouTube and I took it down, but Baby didn’t let himself be taken down: “I’ll be a singer”. He was supposed to stay with us for two years, he wanted to stay for three: I saw him handwriting his pieces, at night; I accompanied him to record them in certain studio dives that only he knew. And more importantly, through his songs, starting with Three eyeswe have connected».

«I had such a small brain», Zaccaria reproduces the size of a walnut with his thumb and forefinger. “Music has opened it up to me, I swear. I also chose it for a while put it in my birth father’s ass. For a period, between communities, my mother took me to him in Morocco, with the hope that you would settle down. Do you know the favelas? People wash themselves with buckets of water, children sniff glue, crime is very high. I who smoked joints was considered a bum. And my dad reinforced the dose: “You will become a bum. You will become an addict”. Once I was watching a video of Lil Wayne, Mirrors, with Bruno Mars, and I showed him: “Look who I’m going to become, a singer like him”. At first he laughed: “Let me hear your voice, kick her out.” He made fun of me with a friend of his. Then he added: “If you become a singer, your little cousin Adam becomes president of the United States”. Do you understand? I started working hard. At work I am very determined, straightforward. I took the beats recorded on the USB stick to prison, I uploaded the videos on the net».

While Don Claudio was converting to trap, after years as director of the Musical Chapel of the Milan Cathedral, Baby Gang received the blessings of Marracash, Guè and Ghali. “One evening he even brought it to the community,” recalls the priest. ‘Stay awake, don, I have a surprise, he told me. She wasn’t the first: once smuggled in a dog, an american bully puppy named Boss”.
Ghali confirms and wants to add one thing: «With his talent, sooner or later, Baby Gang would have come to cover an important role in the music scene. And there was a need. Now that we all know him, it seems trivial, but can you imagine Italian hip pop today without a presence like his?».

In 2020 Warner put him on contract. Why invest in an artist with a substantial criminal record? The answer that the record company gave us: «It is the symbol of an underrepresented generation. Baby Gang is able to tell a cross-section of reality that not everyone knows or pretends not to know. He does it sincerely and directly. Talent before judicial reporting. Don Claudio is also convinced of this: «Baby’s music is denunciation. It is clear that it comes like a punch in the stomach, especially to parents. I too reacted like this. But I said to myself: it’s his reality. And it can help us adults ask ourselves questions: how is it possible that a kid went through that hell? AND we realize that hell is closer than we think?”.

«It’s in my songs one percent of my three lives, because I’ve already lived through three of them», continues Zaccaria. Evenings on the street mistaken for a hustler, nights sleeping under bridges or in the basement, mornings washing at the fountains. Thefts, fights, Daspo – the ban on accessing sporting events –, unauthorized carrying of weapons and a pistol kept under the pillow, the punitive prison as “a grave” without even an hour of fresh air… «If I had to tell everything, no one would believe me. And then another language would be needed: that of cinema. I’ll get there.”

Meanwhile, in the community it’s time for a snack: iced tea, banana smoothie, brioche and biscuits. Zac introduces us Mike from Lodi, one of the few friends he has here: “For the rest i stay alone, the other guests are 40, 45 years old». “Sixty-eight the oldest”, inserts the manager of the structure Loana Di Dio known as “the commander”. “We always repeat to him that he has more pain than life!”. General laughter, but Baby Gang’s gaze goes to the sailors who exploit the Breva that expires. Deep down it worries him a little that the label becomes the character and the character becomes a destiny. «I don’t regret it, but I’m changing. This is my example. I had a drinking problem, not anymore. I used to do robberies, now I make money with music».

The first crazy purchase: «A statue with my head. She’s so tall (points to the chest, ed), I paid six thousand euros for it. She stays at my mother’s house. I took her a villa in front of the Aler buildings where we lived. I would like to buy another one, from home». The post-community it’s a light thought. The inability to perform live it is a boulder thought. The idea of ​​becoming a father it is a distant but concrete thought: «A son of mine is there, however I would like to adopt, to demonstrate to that person that you can start at a disadvantage and then recover. I am Muslim and I always knew my God would turn shit into gold». Is Zac in love? «No. I suffered so much that I don’t try anymore with anyone, she must be the one to take the first step. Pride is everything.”

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