They say that you can’t have it all, but “Feature With a Rapper” comes pretty close. At least, musically speaking and anything not found wrapped within the sonic charms of this latest single from Messiness isn’t worth worrying about.
It is fair to say that Max Raffa, is a true polymath, and the music that he makes as with the help of Rosario Lo Monaco on guitars, Filippo La Marca on keyboards, Giovanni Calella on bass guitar, and Luca Anello on drums, reflects this without question. A singer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, author, sociologist, and someone who has travelled and gigged the length and breadth of Europe, calling everywhere from Liverpool to, now, the less salubrious quarters of Milan home, the wisdom and experience show in the music being made.
There is much going on here, but it is structured in such a way that you never get the feeling that the song is overloaded, showboating, or signaling how clever it is. But it is clever. Rock guitars groove, Beatle-esque vibes drift through, arabesque motifs breeze on by, and horns hit and harmonize – at turns it is psychedelic, it’s glam, it’s rock and roll, it’s pop. It even incorporates the very thing it is targeting, adding a slice of rap to this textured masterclass in music making.
Not that it is rap in particular that Max has in his sights, more the way that the music industry repackages and sells musical gimmicks and sonic gizmos – dance routines and celebrity appearances, lowest common denominator musicality and the titular guest rappers – to make up for the fact that the song probably wasn’t that good in the first place. It’s the very definition of the phrase “style over substance.”
So, where does that leave the independent artists —those whose songs are good enough but who don’t have (paid for) industry connections to open doors? Those like Max and Messiness, who have both style AND substance. Who knows, but the fight back must start in the grassroots of the music industry. Max might not have the answers, but at least he got a great song out of it. Hey, maybe that in itself is the answer, the initial spark, the start of a fight back (cue dramatic soundtrack) whose momentum will find us storming the barricades and flipping over the metaphorical moneylenders’ tables, with this song as the rabble-rousing anthem?
Wouldn’t that be something?
Fatally single
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Feature With a Rapper single
