“I’m super happy to see you. Here there are my friends and those who have supported me from the beginning, give me strength, so it’s a real pleasure to make you listen to my first album. sad party “. An achievement for rapper AM La Scampia to offer a preview of his first album, which is released this Friday, to around ten early supporters. What is more, in his city, Marseille, he who was born in Gignac-la-Nerthe, a few kilometers away.
And what a long way for the man who was discovered in 2017 when he signed on the La Crim label, Plata or Plomo. “At the time I had a snack bar in Gignac, La Scamp’. It was the customers who gave that name because it was my nickname, La Scampia [Quartier de Naples réputé pour être l’un des plus dangereux]. The Crim falls on a piece that I had put on YouTube in audio. I have my phone ringing, the CRIM got my number, he had just been released from prison. He says to me “hi, it’s the Crime”, he puts himself in video to show me that it’s really him, I say to myself “it kills”. He asks me if I can go to Paris, I tell him “the truth, I’m all alone at the snack bar, there’s no one to replace me, if you offer me a contract I’ll close the snack bar”. And he told me to go up to Paris to discuss it. I took the train the next day and after five minutes he said to me, “AM I want to put your song on my album”. And there I realize that he wants to put my solo on his comeback album. I delete him from YouTube, and as a result, he offers me a contract, ”recalls AM La Scampia.
Label 1092, the distance between Marseille and Naples
It’s 2017, and AM even decides to extend its Parisian adventure to understand the tricks of the trade. “In the end, I stayed in Paris for more than a year, and I absorbed my experience. The Crim trained me, he understood that I was self-taught, that I managed on my own. I created my own manager myself, with a second WhatsApp chip. I had a WhatsApp called Thomas and when guys wanted to communicate with me, I told them to contact Thomas. But Thomas was me, but he was harder financially, you see. Harder on schedules, on everything,” he laughs.
From this Parisian experience, he created his own label 1092, the distance between Marseille and Naples. Because AM La Scampia is also a globetrotter. Paris, Barcelona, Geneva, Italy and Naples, among others. “Naples, I knew at 18 years old. I was in Italy, two hours from Naples, and my father is crazy about Maradona. And they called me La Scampia in the neighborhood. Naturally I went there and there I caught Naples in Marseille mode from the 90s. The Marseille that I love, the humanity, the sun, ”he says. To the point of making solid friendships there. “If you give respect, he gives you back. Nobody ever disrespected me, because I never disrespected anybody,” La Scamp explains.
He won a competition singing Balavoine
He also recorded sad party in Paris, Naples and Marseilles. Because his first album is a clever mix of his travels and his musical influences, he who has always been immersed in music. “I listen to all the music in the world from Cesaria Evora to Italian pop from the 70s, Lucio Battisti or Chris De Burgh, via the FF, Psy 4. I have a wide range of phew, my father makes darbouka, my mother listened to a lot of music, and my brother was into music. We rented CDs from the library, and I rewrote all the lyrics in a notebook. Tomorrrow is far away, I had written it from A to Z when I was 8 years old. One day I won a singing competition in Vitrolles by surprise. I go with my brother who is doing a singing competition, it’s me who sings Balavoine at the end like that, and it’s me who wins it, ”recalls this enthusiast.
Multiple influences and travels, the reasons why it took five years between signing with La Crim and the release of sad party, on his 1092 label. I could disagree with a lot of my sounds. Even if I make a sound that is at the top, I always want to go a little higher. When I compose my music, it’s colors, not sounds, so I was looking for consistency between the titles. I made a hundred songs I kept 14. And I needed to explore my universe, ”reveals the rapper.
Result, a first album of 14 titles, including one with my reufton with La Crim, of course, but also Carter City with Rat Luciano. “He’s my big brother, he gives me a lot of advice, I absorb a lot of what he tells me. He can read me, in fact. He knows where I want to go. The principles that I have it is he who instilled them in me. There were my parents, and the rat Luciano. But I’m not going to talk about Luc’ because it moves me, and he doesn’t really like people talking about him, ”he confides.
A first Planet Rap, “incredible in my eyes”
And an immense pride to finally release his first album:
“I’m super happy that my album is coming out. It’s my baby, as if I exposed it in front of the steps of the maternity ward to all my supporters. I was lucky to have a fan base that kept me going all these years. Today I even have my first Planet Rap, for a youngster from Gignac-la-Nerthe, a youngster from Marignane, I’m one of the first to get my head out of the water. It’s amazing to me. I listened to all the Planet Rap on the radio, it’s a culmination of phew. Especially for me who was away for quite a few years. »
But let his fans be reassured, the wait before AM La Scampia’s second opus will be shorter. He plans to return to the studio in June to continue on a second album, before a big tour. Because that’s what drives him, meeting his supporters: “I need their strength”.