Spender, the interview: drugs, new scene and death

For Gianluca Lisci in art Spender There are no half measures. “I have a medal with two faces, and there is no compromise between the two,” explains the rapper, 32 years old, while chewing a falafel and cuts a toast with salmon and avocado on a table of a Milanese bistro. «The thing that I am most interested is to excite, because exciting is always beautiful, Whether it’s with a tear or laughter, For my music or for my book ». The book of which Spender talks is The devil dressed as a fool Published by Rizzoli in which he tells his story for the first time: the one who dragged him into the drug tunnel when he was just 12 years old By leading him to live on an roller coaster of self -destruction and pain until he understood that it was right to free himself from addiction. In this rap musicwhich led him to place fourth at the first edition of New scene On Netflix, he played a crucial role, even if he was decisive in the Spender path was another thing: the urgency of never showing himself as a winner.

Ever heard a winner?
«The fear of showing weak, fragile or losers on social media. In some moments we are losers, and we must not be ashamed we are. The life I tell in the book is divided into three: the one as a child, that of drugs and that after drugs, but there is nothing to be ashamed for this ».

Did he fear someone’s judgment in particular when he wrote it?
«I was very careful to speak in the right way of my parents, even if especially when I was a child I suffered a lot because of them. Writing a book full of resentment was, however, just what I didn’t want to do: first, because there is no diploma to be parents, and second, because, if I had ever followed that way, it is likely that I would be ashamed of it. After they read it, they thanked me for my delicacy, as well as for having finally known my version of history ».

From its history, above all the importance of time emerges, considering that the book begins by talking about the years and days when it has no longer taken drugs. What is time to spend today?
«The most precious thing we have. I have lost so much to take drugs and to self -destruct, considering that, after stopping, the first years I hurt myself in other ways, even slipping into relationships that were not going well for me. Today I try to give value to every single day trying to exploit it in the best possible way. I would never lose, to say, time to fight with someone on WhatsApp, because it would be something toxic and not healthy for me and my life ».

He started to take drugs shortly before becoming a teenager: he ever reflected on the crucial years he has lost because of the addiction?
«No, because if I am what I am today it is also for those years there. Net of not being dead, I don’t think I have lost time. Maybe I lost more when I was afraid to get involved with the music and I had already been sober for a while. In life I have never had a plan B different from music ».

When did this plan A take shape in you?
“Around 2015. I rolled up my sleeves, I did my studio inside a car garage in Gardenia and started to get music out with my friends.”

And there the autosbacker who was in her disappeared.
“I gave him a good football in the ass, the problem is that this football I have to give him daily because the self -tanker is clever: he wakes up before me and, until I open his eyes, he is already in the room to make the weights, studying how to cheat me”.

He often uses self -irony in the book, as well as in his response: was he helpful for her?
“Very. The self -irony is crucial for everything, even to make fun of me alone and resize myself on many things while staggering in the dark ».

What was the light in that darkness?
“Have the dealer number on the phone. Seriously, there was no room to look for the light. I lived in a dark world where, perhaps, the only light were my friends, who helped me to be ashamed ».

Was it lucky to be ashamed?
“If you have an addiction, shame can help you.”

What was the reason that really led her to stop with drugs?
“I stopped not to die. The fear of death made me start with drugs but it made me, paradoxically, even stopping ».

Have you ever been afraid of dying during the years of addiction?
“Yes. It happened during some collapse, but also when I was about to fall asleep and I was afraid of not waking up anymore. I escaped it, though ».

Are you still afraid of dying today?
«It is a word that I can name, and this is already a step forward for me. Before I could not talk about it without the anxiety and my brain pedal to the meaning of life came to me: today I think I have made peace ».

Is he believer?
«I was born in an Atea family, so much so that at school I was the only one to skip the religion lesson. Mine have always told me: you decide whether to believe or not. It is something that made me feel in two ways based on how it turned me: either the most intelligent boy in the class, or the only loser in circulation. As a child I had already read Siddharthaand it often happened later than arguing with the people who believed in God by attacking it. Today I don’t know if God exists, but I think I need to believe in a higher power because, when I started doing it, my life has changed ».

How?
«All things have stopped being in my hands, and this helped me to loosen certain mechanisms and certain responsibilities. Believing in a higher power has allowed me to be less anxious because you know that certain things cannot be competed ».

Believing in something helps to have comfort: what does it give you comfort today?
«Knowing that he is not alone, but also having managed to stop mistreating myself as I once did. I am not and I will never be a perfect man, and that’s fine ».

Has music ever manage to make her feel less alone?
«Yes and no. Music made me feel less only in certain moments and very solve in others. It is an environment that I love, but it is also very competitive ».

TO New scene On Netflix he arrived fourth: in the book he says he took it rather badly at the beginning.
«Very bad, also because I was convinced that I would have to win. Finding, however, people who know all the stanzas of my songs at my concerts has repaid me with everything: it is at times like those that the next day I need to deflate the ego by doing something very human, like a family dinner or with friends. Reduced me serves to remember that I am an ant. “

Ever been afraid of being forgotten?
«I was so afraid of not being seen, but not yet to be forgotten. Today, however, I feel seen by others. Even too much, in some cases. I never wanted to, not even a New scenehowever, that my story became an emotional blackmail for the public: I am one who fights like many others, and that’s it ».