Rapper Geolier was greeted with warm applause at the Scampia headquarters of the Federico II University of Naples during his meeting with the university's students. Emanuele Palumbo, 24 years old three days ago, from Secondigliano, 60 platinum records collected with two albums including the second, The courage of children, turns out to be the bestseller of 2023. And then naturally second place during the last edition of the Sanremo Festival, in the middle of a thousand reviews, like those that accompanied this meeting with the students of Federico II of his Naples birthplace in recent days. Notably that of the Naples prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, who described the choice of the faculty as “absurd”, Geolier as a “negative model for young people”, affirming that the university must represent a place of “education and cultural refinement “. without “selling out” with a “low-cost culture”. Comments that the rector of the university Matteo Lorito commented at the opening of the event, speaking of an “instinctive” choice of the Neapolitan university “in line with the work carried out in the suburbs” to “harvest the 'future “. Lorito continued: “They have dragged us into controversies that do not interest us, the autonomy of the university is sacrosanct and with this debate we respond to all criticism. Some are worried, others are retro, but this is the university we want.”
Love for Naples
When word got out to the young Neapolitan artist, Geolier immediately made things clear: “Here I can't teach anyone anything, I can only learn. I too, like you, have a thousand fears, a thousand anxieties.” The debate then followed the orbit of questions prepared by the students, curious about the rapper's work but also about different aspects of his private life, notably his relationship with Naples: “When I want to feel comfortable, I stay in my neighborhood – he says -, people don't stop me there, they know that I'm there to feel comfortable, everything the world calls me Emanuele and I like that.” And again: “All the prejudices about Naples are false. In Milan, people ask me if helmets exist in Naples, rappers come here to Naples and don't wear watches, and I ask myself: “But how?” You come from Milan, which is the city with the most crimes, and then you arrive here and you don't wear your watch?” Geolier will never abandon Naples: “Besides the connection I have with the people and the city and the inspiration it gives me – he explained -, Naples created me. I cannot bring that to another city. I fight to bring the music industry to Naples and then I will leave? No, that will never happen.”
The relationship with parents
The story of his parents is moving: the questions of his mother, who does not understand why he does not answer when he is in the studio composing a song, and the silences of his father: “When my father speaks, he creates silence, but every time he speaks, it's a lesson: he's what I want to be when I grow up. The first time he complimented me was the other day for The last poem, the song with Ultimo, he said to me “It’s really magnificent”. What I do is for them, if they are proud of me, that's good. I can just stop, that's all that matters to me.” There's also a lot of room in the conversation for rap. Geolier takes the opportunity to talk about how his language has evolved over time and how he gave up on typical clichés of rap from the beginning. “Time makes you mature – he explained -, in my pieces I speak differently lately, but art does not have an educational responsibility, I took it on myself.” And it is precisely this mastery of his artistic action that also protects him from the increasingly pressing threats of Artificial Intelligence: “It scares me very much – he says – but one thing that artificial intelligence will never have, it is the pain of an artist. Since it is a question of mathematics, there will never be any feeling.” Another fear of Geolier, who admitted for this reason that he envies the students of Federico II, is that of not being understood: “I would have studied more to communicate better with people – he admitted -. During the first interviews, I was afraid to speak: I'm a local boy, it was strange to say a word in Italian, it's perhaps the only regret I have.”
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