Capo Plaza: “Ask me if I’m real”

This article is published in number 5 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 2, 2021

We are well over January in January, but in the background of our Zoom chat Capo Plaza still holds the decorated Christmas tree. Throughout the conversation he keeps the hood of the sweatshirt firmly pulled over his head and interprets the interview as a freestyle, some answers work better if you try rapping them instead of reading them. Capo Plaza is Luca D’Orso, 22, from Salerno, a past with some legal woes not too small and enough ambition to enlighten us Milan, the city where he lives today.

Luca traps, because this is what ambitious 20-year-olds in Italy do. Plaza is his second album (20, his debut, had had a stellar success), a mixture of ostentation, vitality and restlessness, with several prestigious collaborations, including his friend Sfera Ebbasta.

Let’s start with good manners, Luca knew that the single Workout # 4 is the only Italian piece in Spotify’s Top 10 Global Debuts and so I congratulate him.

Well? What effect does it have?
«A nice effect, because I really started from nothing, from the street, from four benches, unlike someone, who always says it in his songs. It’s nice, because no one imagined this record, these names. I no longer feel like an Italian rapper, I feel like a European rapper, I feel I represent Italy and it is only me and Sfera who do it ».

How was your street in Salerno?
“A popular neighborhood. Quiet, occasionally rowdy. I did my bullshit, the music saved me. Who knows what happened to me without. The neighborhood gives you a lot and takes away a lot ».

Her mother wanted her to be an accountant.
“I’ve never been a champion at school, always diverted to something else, music to everything. School was optional, because I felt like I was becoming a rapper. For me this is the American dream and the American dream is more true if you run after it from Salerno ».

If you could go back to Luca on those benches today, what would you say to him?
“To get away from that city even faster, because he won’t do anything there, he’ll just waste time. And to remember that you are always alone in this environment, everyone has an ulterior motive ».

I quote: “Anyone can have what I have, the hard part is keeping it.”
“I had to grow up fast. Sometimes I have to remember that I’m only twenty-two. At twenty-two you still have to make a lot of mistakes. But I don’t know if I can do it, I have to show the best part of me and never the worst ».

What’s his worst part?
“I never wish anyone to see you.” (laughs)

At twenty-two in Italy one remains young for another decade.
«It is a difficult speech. I am convinced that young people in Italy are a strength, music proves it, today it is full of kids from 2000, 2002. We are worth a lot and it is this country that does not know how to appreciate us. We need a generational change at the top. Italy is full of mold on the top and I’m not just talking about music. You can’t manage this country as if the last thirty years had never existed. Let’s take racism. Black culture and interracial exchange are beautiful, why is it so difficult in Italy? The attitude towards young people is the same as with migrants. They don’t listen to you, they don’t make you express and they don’t want you. I repeat: too much mold ».

How does racism affect it when it is embraced by politics?
«Brother, I don’t understand them. We are no longer in 1920, I have more Moroccan friends than Italians, people much better than Salvini, they could make our nation grow and open the brain to many people ».

Is there a mold problem in rap too?
“They listen to American rappers and then criticize the Italians, they say: rap in Italy sucks.”

Because?
“They say it’s not real, but they’re good at just saying it behind a keyboard. Rap is not the rapper who does the melodic song or reggaeton. Rap and trap are something else. Even if you don’t like it, with me you just have to lower your hat, you can’t fault me, because you don’t know anything about me. How dare you say I’m not real? And then maybe on the street you ask me for the photo ».

What then, what does it mean to be or not to be real?
“To be real is getting out of a certain situation, a certain neighborhood, on your own and without doing damage. There street credibility it is not having the irons, the guns, in the videos. Of course, it is that too, but it is above all knowing how to get out of that situation. The neighborhood is a jungle, the slaps are given and taken. That’s being real, not having ten clubs and four guns in hand. The most powerful weapon in the neighborhood is the brain. ‘

What effect does it have on your return to those four benches in Salerno today?
“I hardly ever go back. Milan is now my home, it has adopted me, it makes me grow. I would not have taken some steps in Salerno, it is the most beautiful city in the world and I owe it a lot, but mental poverty, ignorance, is great. The postcard of Salerno is beautiful, then you go inside and discover many things that are not beautiful. I like Milan, sooner or later it will hold me tight too ».

Unfortunate the family in which a rapper is born?
«I say lucky, from an economic point of view. (laughs) Then, brother, you have to ask them. I don’t know if it is an advantage or a defect for them, they weren’t expecting such a success, but I think they must have thought: better this way ».

Do you still feel like a child, despite having grown up very quickly?
“I will feel like a son even at sixty. Who comes from the South is a child for life, the roots are never forgotten ».

Neither does Mom.
«For a twenty-two year old boy who lives alone in the North, a mother’s embrace is everything. The outburst of being able to talk to each other is best. Having my people around makes me feel calm, especially after all the problems that have been there ».

There was a dark period, a gap between the first and second album.
«Full of disappointments and evolutions, a period of reflection, but I could not put the pen on the paper. Things were getting serious and I didn’t realize it. Then Plaza is back again and he is the boss again, even when he shows defeats ».

How do you see yourself at forty?
“I don’t know how I see myself tomorrow, bro. I live for the day and anything can happen at any time. I hope to be in America with 89 Ferraris and with my friends not to think about anything anymore. ‘Fuck rap, I want to become the richest businessman in the world, I open an app, the Plaza app ». (laughs)

Why won’t he be in Sanremo?
“Because I don’t want to go. I respect it, I watch it, I like it, I just don’t like the songs. I would go there as a guest, to make people understand the music that Sfera and I make, to make people understand how he does the numbers he does ».

He often mentions him, Sfera. How is your relationship?
«We are different, but we both wanted to break the taboo that with music you could not go beyond Italy. Then he is a friend, we have the same vision ».

And come from similar benches.
“Two identical realities in two cities that are so different, neighborhoods and buildings that are very distant but so close”.

Photo by Andrea Bianchera.

To subscribe to Vanity Fair, click here.