Tedua, the new album Il Paradiso

Meet today Tedua it essentially means encountering living matter. His music is alive, now that one year after his five platinum albums The divine Comedy the deluxe version will be released on Friday, Heaven, eight pieces of which seven are unpublished «in which I remove some pebbles», and as in Dante it tells of the ascent «to a mental state of peace, of awareness». And his personal story is alive, as he answers questions while smoking an electronic cigarette from the offices of a major company, while behind him we see the skyscrapers of Milan and we ask him about news of sentimental gossip. «No comment», she laughs, like someone who still finds this type of attention strange. But in short, the boy from public housingwho grew up without a father (“I saw him again recently, it was an intimate moment, difficult to talk about”), he made it, and he is one of the leading names of Italian pop. «There are rappers who remain so. I don't deny anything, but I wanted to become an artist who knows music from 360 degrees, which is something else.”

The balance of twelve months as a champion starts from here, which began with a long-awaited and painful album in which he laid himself bare and never seemed to arrive again – «A The divine Comedy I worked there for three years, I looked for a new awareness with an unprecedented work team, I risked my career” – which in the end took a step further, towards the singer-songwriter side, consciousto hip hop itself, as only a Marracash he had succeeded. In short, the feeling is of being at a point of no return. “It certainly was for me,” he says. «Before I was famous in a niche. This time the goal was to compete with the mainstream, and I succeeded. I'm sorry to have lost a small part of the fans of the first hour, less to have haters. They say I do mainstream stuff, that I have nothing special. I learned that you can't please everyone, and that the message is often misunderstood.”

Also because Tedua, in reality, has many things to say: The divine Comedy it was a Dantesque journey into circles populated by ghosts, a work that worked because «I found the right formula, that is, mixing more lively pieces with other reflective ones», and in particular it told the story of a thirty-year-old boy who got lost and found, then imposing himself as a guide, older brother, of the many young people who follow him. «I understand those who accuse me of having done something commercial album: it is. But I think we can go beyond certain things teenage plots: if it has collected five platinums, it has something to do with it too quality».

If you are not sure Heaven it is the moment in which he passes to the collection, among pieces that he has been working on for some time as Lonelinessin which he samples the song of the same name by Laura Pausini and that's the usual one self-therapy session, exposed nerves and so on, and other fresh ones. «They were born in the last four months, when I took a breath. I still had many things to say, including some new things that happened to me, but if a year ago I was anxious, now I have been calm, without pressure. Success gave me awarenessI experimented with freedom». There's no need to be hypocritical about numbers, he says, “if you sell a product it's normal to think about it”, but that's not how you measure it heaven, at least his. «For me it is being fulfilled, satisfied with yourself, at peace».

Among the guests are the young rap advancing of Tony Boyin At the limitand the roots of the Ligurian trap scene in which he was formed, in Jolly Roger, «perhaps the piece I am most fond of». But the bulk, in terms of prospects and ambitions, is measured in Annalisa (“The queen of pop”) who plays his Beatrice in Beatriceand in Angelina Mango (“A marvel, we met in Sanremo”) who is entrusted with the final piece, Guardian angel. It's a game between who brings who into their world, but it is clear that Tedua, first of all, is taking the big step. «I can already imagine thirty-five thousand people singing Calm sea», he sighs thinking about when he will perform another of the songs from this deluxe live, in concerts that will still be «more played» than the usual hip hop concerts. And then «i Lunapop they 883 that I devoured as a child”, Pausini's champion again, again Calm sea «which won't have the depth of Iris by Biagio Antonacci, but singing it makes me feel like a baby-Grignani».

Lots of clues, here, prove: maybe Tedua doesn't want to become one popstars and he did not leave aside the rap (“Maybe those who have left will change their minds in the future”), but in his future there is becoming a classic. «Far from urban, this is the direction. I cry as much as I feel The cure Of Battiato, that's where I'd like to get to. But I know that Battiato didn't write it when he was thirty, and to do so he surrounded himself with intellectuals and philosophers. For now I know that putting feelings into songs pays off, people see each other again.” The rest is looking down from the skyscraper from which he is speaking, not getting dizzy, but also understanding that heaven is not on the twentieth floor, in a contract with a major label, in platinum records that you no longer know where to put them. «I've never been so good at writing. So I don't have a full stomach, actually. The best is yet to come, from now on.”