If you do a little (very little) search on the internet, you can find pictures of a boy nicknamed Duki rapping in a square in Buenos Aires surrounded by kids. It was the middle of the last decade and that young man didn’t have one of the many tattoos he currently sports, for example on his face.. That’s where it comes from, these are the origins of a boy who became a touchstone for those who listen to him from a few centimeters away in the ‘freestyle’ battles where he hardened over the years. He received his PhD in street academy in 2016 when he won the legendary rhyming tournament called El Quinto Escalón. (with YSY A as organizer).
And it ceased to be a touchstone in those squares and became a touchstone in its own country and later in the world.. Duki (Mauro Ezequiel Lombardo, 26 years old) arrives in Barcelona by car this weekend. Twice ‘sold out’ at Palau Sant Jordi, Argentina’s greatest artist (Friday 3 and Saturday 4). But that would be too synthesizing his figure. In these squares where Duki got tough, a movement spontaneously formed, accompanying some Argentine youth who had no reference in music at the time. “They came from saying something in the squares, conveying a way of life and emotion with which an entire generation has identified,” Fede Lauría, founder of Lauria Entertainment and a companion to the rapper since his founding, told this newspaper months ago. . through his own company, Dale Play.
Movement”
Duki (23 million listeners on Spotify with his songs between trap, rap and reggaeton) has become the most dazzling figure of an urban “movement”—a term coined by the heroes themselves—that has never stopped growing: Nicki Nicole, Khea, Cazzu. .. Or Bizarrap himself in the role of producer. Born in ‘freestyle’, the wave of art grew on the basis of comradeship, something the leader of them all is clear about.
Lauría recounted what Duki had told her at her first business meeting: “I fell in love with her when I met her. At the first meeting, I asked her what she wanted, and she told me, ‘Win a Grammy and all my friends start growing music with me,’” Explain. And Duki is just as good as Puerto Ricans or Colombians. Since it was clear that he couldn’t form the movement alone, as he had formidable rivals, he kept up with the majority, thereby gradually expanding the audience for this type of music in their country by shaking hands, collaborating, and knitting complicity with each other.
The peak moment for Duki and the Argentine urban movement came last fall: The rapper filled the stadium of the Vélez Sarfield team for four days. 180,000 viewers in total. And that’s with an extremely young audience, which is always harder to mobilize, mainly for economic reasons. It is not strange, then, that after the Argentine team’s victory in the World Cup in Qatar, he felt the strength and legitimacy of writing a song. (“3 stars on set”), a duet with Bizarrap to celebrate the title. His journey has been from the “underground” that these “battle” places may represent, until he allegedly went into the pasty “mainstream” of “El hormiguero”, the only interview he gave during his current visit to Spain.
With double Wizink and double Sant Jordi (17,000 tickets a day), Spain appears to be fertile ground for him and his teammates. (many Argentine artists performed at festivals there this summer). Duki never concealed his great admiration for the Spanish urban movement. -The ripple created by the Spanish trap that started in the South American country years ago- and how it affected his career. And over the years, he’s joined forces with many of the scene’s protagonists: From Yung Beef, Sticky MA, producer Steve Lean, and most recently Quevedo and Dano. For example, he collaborated with the latter on his latest album ‘Man plans, God laughs’.