Italian Trap Music – The Music of Italy’s Post-Millennials

In Italy today, what do Andrea Bocelli, Luciano Pavarotti, and Jovanotti have in common among Italian teenagers?  Other than being names associated with “old” people, their music is essentially obsolete.  Italian teenagers don’t care about sacred arias, romantic operas, and world funk music.  Instead, repetitious lyrical shouting about making money, drugs, chasing girls, and rising from struggle, is what excites teenagers in Italy today.  This genre is known as Trap Music.

Trap music originated from southern hip hop dating back to the early 2000s in the United States.  However, in Italy, Trap music arrived in approximately 2011, with the real boom beginning in 2014 when the Milanese rapper, Sfera Ebbasta, entered the scene in a big way.

The Roman group, Dark Polo Gang, entered the Trap scene shortly after Sfera Ebbasta, and today, both of them remain the most popular Trap musical performers in Italy.  From 2016 to the present, Trap music has become more and more popular, and new trappers have emerged, including Izi, Tedua, and Ghali.  Additionally, Trap music is intensely popular in Italian middle schools and high schools today – so much so that if you are a teenager in Italy and d0 not listen to Trap music, you would be an outcast.

Like in all musical genres, it is common for Italians to listen to American performers.  Other than the Italian performers such as Sfera Ebbasta, Dark Polo Gang, and a handful of other trappers, Italians listen to several American trap artists as well, with the most famous being Lil Pump.

Before writing this post, I admittedly had never heard of Trap music, but this evening my 14-year-old friend, Giulia, from Florence, gave me quite an education.  It is amazing to me, as we grow, what is popular one day, will not be popular another day.  Italy is not exempt from our ever-changing world, and as much as its landscapes, and centuries-old buildings remain immutable, Italian culture changes, including its music, fads and trends.

For all Italian Enthusiasts who desire to embrace modern Italian culture, I think we should all broaden our horizons and begin to explore all Italian musical genres, because a study into the musical genre such as Trap, for example, will give us a deeper understanding of modern Italian culture – not because the lyrics are profound with meaning, but because they are widely accepted by young Italians as the music of choice.