It all started with a slap. Not a small one, no. The kind that leaves a red mark on the cheek for a long time. The kind that germinates a dark resentment in the brain of a teenager. This slap, the young Nabil received it at just fifteen years old, in a sports hall in Port-de-Bouc, in the Bouches-du-Rhône. A local boss asks him to give up his place on a machine. The teenager begs him to wait. And here he is taking a hit.
When Nabil recounts the scene that day, around him, there are no longer the machines in the weight room, the sweat, the confused hubbub that surrounds the fights. Only the cozy atmosphere of a small theater in the center of Marseille, deserted, one afternoon in December, surrounded by a few members of his team. However, seated on a seat in the theater, dressed in an immaculate white tracksuit, he seems teleported to this moment that turned his life upside down. “I grabbed a weight to put on his head. Another guy grabbed me by the arm. I was fifteen. I weighed 45 kg. I was at the top of the class. What could I do? I went. And I told him: “It’s simple, one day, I’m going to grow up. And I will find you”. »
” A butcher shop “
Nabil goes home, keeps silent. The next day, he asks his parents to stop karate for boxing. “When I trained with my brothers, in my boxing, there was too much hatred. When I was boxing, I saw the face of the one who had slapped me. I loved the adrenaline that this sport gave me. But I did not lose the north. From this slap, I had flashes of it. »
At 18, he switched to MMA, and became the youngest holder of the discipline within the France team. Shortly after, in a shopping center in Martigues, his path crosses by chance the one who haunts his mind. “It was a butcher. “After this violent fight, the young man received a year in prison, in Pontet, in the Vaucluse. His parents, of modest origin, refuse to come to see him. His two brothers are CRS and gendarmes. Only one of them comes to the parlor. Nabil remains walled in his silence with his family. “I didn’t mention the slap to my brother. I just said that I ran into him and freaked out. Maybe I was ashamed to have taken that slap. »
” The shop is open “
In prison, Nabil learns that the one for whom he is worth hating is at the head of a drug trafficking network. “An inmate at the prison suggested that we take over the network. He said to me: “I have the powder”, implying the guns, “you, you have the fists”. I was in jail. I had received a second slap. The former boxer and his accomplice head up a first network. “In prison, the casting is already done, he smiles. You have the one who sells weapons, the one who kills… The store is open. All you have to do is use it. »
On his release from prison, he directs a second one. “What keeps you going is the easy money,” he explains, a golden watch on his wrist. The parties, the girls, the big cars, the trips, the restaurants… You feel like the master of the world. You are in a spiral where there are wolves that bite, and where you have to bite first. Nabil was arrested after a few years. Return to Pontet with, this time, an Italian fellow prisoner. “He was there for murder. One day on a walk, Nabil wants to call his fellow prisoner, in the distance. Immersed in his conversation, he hears nothing. So, for fun, Nabil sings “O Sole Mio” with a stentorian voice.
Pavarotti
“I had never listened to opera,” he explains. When I came across it on TV, I zapped. When I sang in the playground, I felt like I was discovering how high we were. When he heard me, the head of detention came out and asked who had sung. Nabil expects to be garlanded. The head of detention summons him to his office. He is a fan of opera and is surprised by the talent of the prisoner. Nabil receives two Pavarotti CDs as a gift. And, by dint of training, singing on the voice of the famous tenor, Nabil becomes Naestro. “My cellmate translated the lyrics for me,” he recalls. The other inmates were calling their wives from their cells, and I was singing at the window. The whole prison heard me. »
Within the four walls of the Pontet prison, Naestro decides to embrace a career as an opera singer. “I knew that was what would get me through. As soon as he left, Naestro went to the Marseille Opera to attend his very first recital. “When I saw the singers on stage, I thought I could do better,” he smiles. At the end of the concert, while the public applauds, he decides to go on stage, provoking the screams of the artists who call security. “I told them: ‘No, don’t call, I found out a few weeks ago that I sing! ””
Bella Ciao
With the support of the public, after a few minutes of negotiation, Naestro manages to perform on this stage, accompanied on the piano by an opera artist. “It was absolutely crazy,” he recalls. I had shivers down my spine. I had only felt that on the run. The audience stood up. At the end, the person at the piano who was accompanying me was crying. One of the singers performing that night took Naestro under his wing and gave him lessons, free of charge.
A few months later, Naestro was propelled to the final of France has an unbelievable talent. He then chained the television sets, On Friday, everything is allowed to Do not touch My TV. But Naestro sees further. While Money Heist knows the success that we know, Naestro has the idea to record a cover of Bella Ciao with one of the rappers in vogue in France. He doesn’t know any. When he tries to contact them, all refuse. But giving up is not in the opera singer’s vocabulary. “I recorded my version, and one evening, leaving a nightclub, I went to see Gims, who had already refused, he explains. I made him listen to the song on a loudspeaker. He was convinced. »
Dadju, Slimane and Vitaa are added to the project. In 2018, Bella Ciao becomes double diamond disc. Not surprising Naestro. “I knew it,” he says. And success continues to halo the path of the singer from Port-de-Bouc, since his latest single, E Lucevan Le Stelle, which mixes the opera aria he had sung in Marseille with rap, is number 1 in Italy. Within weeks, the clip surpassed two million views on YouTube. And from the top of his 33 years, the artist does not miss a project, between an autobiographical book, a musical in Canada, and a one-man-show in Paris next March. “If I had to go back, maybe I wouldn’t have sold drugs,” concludes Naestro. But I would still take the slap. »