Rebel Rap
Sunday 10 May 2009 (Michael Bugeja - The Sunday Times of Malta)
In a small but cosily done-up garage-cum-rehearsal studio somewhere in Naxxar, I’m speaking to Jon Mallia (aka Pen_Demonium) and Phil Zammit (a cellist as far as I know but it turns out he’s quite the multi-instrumentalist too). They are both members of Malta’s prime hiphop band Sixth Simfoni, but they’ve been holed up here for more hours than they’d care to remember, working hard on a new project that only sprang to life days earlier. That was about five weeks ago. The project, christened The No Bling Show is now complete, with the fruit of their efforts providing an evening’s entertainment down at Rookies where the band, boosted by the presence of rapper Snoop and featuring guest artists Mario Vella (of Brikkuni), Nick Morales (of No Snow/No Alps) and Nadine Chircop (of Sixth Simfoni), launched its debut album, Stejjer mill-bandli (tal-Mosta) last Sunday.
The idea for the No Bling Show was the result of a few factors. Primarily there was Mallia’s interest in creating authentic Maltese rap. As the band’s name clearly implies this wasn’t going to be about gold chains, hoes or flamboyant designer gear. “It’s a trait that is also common with Sixth Simfoni. We are only interested in hip hop that is genuine, shorn of the excess bling-bling and flashy machoism that has unfortunately become a defining element of the MTV generation. Hip hop was always about telling it like it is”, Mallia explains quite vehemently.
And that is precisely what Stejjer mill-bandli (tal-Mosta) does. Give Mallia a microphone – any microphone, even the little thing stuck on the end of my voice recorder – and he’ll cook up a rap that will definitely be honest, hard-hitting and direct. Straight-up, no-frills has always been Mallia’s credo as long as I’ve known him, and the crude content on the featured songs here – the reason for the self-imposed 18 adult rating boldly printed on the CD sleeve – pulls no punches. “I thought it would be interesting to venture into an area where hip hop and the Maltese vernacular could fade into each other”, Mallia replies when I ask about the language employed on most of the album’s 10 original numbers. “The ‘bandli’ (kids’ playground) have always struck me as quite the opposite of the innocent playzone for kids it’s intended to be. I’m not trying to scare anyone but the truth is, kids aren’t the only ones who frequent these ‘protected’ places. Go to any ‘bandli’ on the island and see for yourself”.
Acknowledging that the lyrics require an adult audience, I ask about the music on the album, which is quite diverse in both style and its tendency to veer away from the ‘usual’ hip hop structure. Behind the beats lie crafty arrangements; none too polished since these songs are essentially home recordings done at the band’s own Sounds-Nice Xorta studio, but with enough flair to project the essential elements that No Bling Show was created for. The musical content is Phil Zammit’s handiwork. An accomplished musician with a renegade heart, he was quick to tune into Mallia’s lyrics and ideas and translated them into the sonic background that holds this album together. “The only luxury we indulged in was to have Niki Gravino do the mastering at his Foreface Studio”, Zammit says. “Everything else was done here on these computers” he adds, pointing to a humble set-up in a corner of this garage.
On record, the songs live up to the direct narrations they were intended to be; the arrangements vivid and in total harmony to the vocals. And on one song at least, the instrumental Meta Taghmel Ix-Xita, Zammit gets to be the leading man. Elsewhere, the story of Lucija u Samwel (in two parts) recounts the descent of two innocent youths who fall foul of drugs and the lowlife while 2032 addresses a more social aspect, its words painting a grim picture of what Malta could end up as in the foreseeable future. Ritornell, on the other hand is an explicit rant of a sensual/sexual nature, while Anzi s-Sajf, injected with a reggae tilt, bemoans the intense heat a typical Maltese summer brings with it. Bla Xinxilli embodies No Bling Show’s raison d’etre, U l-iskola digs deep into Mallia’s schooldays for inspiration and Merhba, Mosta is the aural painting that inspired this album’s title and consequently every other song it contains.
Live, the songs take on another dimension, and if the intensely responsive audience present at Rookie’s last week is anything to go by, these songs have (as the band’s slogan Hip Hop Bil-Malti Ghall-Generazzjoni Taghna clearly declares) certainly struck a chord with the youth of today, as much for their liberal use of the Maltese language as for the topics that Mallia’s words dare to unveil. Concocted in the space of five weeks from beginning to end, this album, indeed this entire project possesses a rebellious streak that revives the true meaning and origin of hip hop, and that’s to keep it real, keep it raw, and above all, keep it true. Tell it like it is…and the No Bling Show has done just that.