New album
“Blessings”: Emilio Sakraya judges himself harshly
Emilio Sakraya: “Privately, I want to lead a normal life.” photo
© Jörg Carstensen/dpa
Emilio Sakraya becomes a cinema shooting star early on. But fame also has its downsides. On his personal album “Blessings” he sings about alcohol crashes and, for the first time, about his son.
At 27 years old, Emilio Sakraya can already look forward to a steep career Camera look back: As a teenager he played the young Bushido (“Times change you”), became a girl’s crush in the “Bibi and Tina” films, appeared in the highly acclaimed gangster series “4 Blocks” and finally made his breakthrough as rapper Xatar in Fatih Akin’s “Rheingold”. Sakraya deals with the dark side of this early fame as a singer. His third album “Blessings” will be released on Friday (April 19th).
“The effect you have on others when you’re famous does something to you. If you can’t go for a walk in peace because someone asks you for a photo or secretly takes photos, that subconsciously does something to you,” Sakraya tells dpa in an interview. “In my case, these were processes that a very young brain had to somehow process. At the same time, I had to learn what it means to take responsibility.”
Emilio settles accounts with himself
In the first song, entitled “What you do”, the singer, who simply calls himself Emilio in the music, reckons with his former self in a dialogue: “I’m slowly getting sick of you. I’m slowly getting a bit afraid You. You act like you’re better than everyone else here… I hate your reputation because it will ruin me.”
In “Rote Ampel” the Berlin-born singer describes how a boy looks in awe at his luxury car at the traffic lights and wishes for a similarly successful life. But Emilio replies: “Believe me, this life is different than expected… Success makes people different… Always have to function… No time for the family, really breaks my heart.”
In his lyrics, the 27-year-old looks straightforward and reflectively at an eventful life that he now has completely under control again – no alcohol, no cigarettes, but exercise every day. That contributed a lot to his mental health. Just like moving to Munich. “In my private life, I want to lead a normal life, be close to my family and bring peace and quiet home.”
Singer recently revealed a family secret
One of the positive sides of life that isn’t neglected on the album is his little son, whom he didn’t talk about for years and mentioned for the first time in December on his single “Cacio e pepe”: “Even though I’m free at the moment “I spend an hour in the mountains with my son and we hold hands,” it says.
A lyric that was originally supposed to be different. But while writing the song in Norway, he spontaneously rewritten the passage that was actually supposed to be about his girlfriend, moving his team to tears.
On “Blessings” Emilio, who will be appearing in the new season of the Vox music show “Sing meine Song – Das Tauschkonzert” from next week, appears personal and vulnerable. The sound of the album, produced by the Munich duo Truva, oscillates between hip-hop-oriented pop with a lot of autotune, casual soul numbers (such as “Stay”) and a feel-good swing like in the track “Strawberry Eyes”, which was also by Harry Styles could come from.
Music video “Cacio e Pepe” Emilio Sakraya on Instagram