SFERA EBBASTA

Sfera Ebbasta is a Milanese rapper who since his first approach to the Italian scene in 2010 has come to be known as the indisputably biggest artist in Italian trap music.

By putting out content during his underground days (2010-2014), Sfera would come in contact and collaborate with now established acts such as Capo Plaza and super-producer Charlie Charles.

The collaboration with the ladder resulted in his first historic mixtape: “Emergenza Mixtape Vol.1”.

After this first outing of the creative duo, Sfera and Charles would continue to turn heads all throughout 2015, a year that culminated for both in the release of the now legendary “XDVR” EP. The title-track to this body of work would be later remixed with added guests Luché and Marracash, generating a song that would become a staple of trap in the country.

With the growing expectations and amount of eyes pointed at the young star, 2016 would have had to be the year where Sfera reaped the seeds that he sowed. And so it was.

That year would be the one where international artists, such as French rapper SCH, would take notice of the promising Italian and would collaborate with him on a few tracks.

Notable ones were “Cartine Cartier” (off SCH’s album “Anarchie”) and “Balenciaga”.

That last track would appear on the rapper’s self-titled debut LP, “Sfera Ebbasta”. What Sfera would achieve with this project is an impressive capability to capture progressive trap sounds developing in the US, translated to Italian sensibilities, while also rendering the sound immediately commercially viable, as demonstrated by hit songs like “BRNBQ”, “Visiera a Becco” and “Figli di Papà”.

The at-that-time consolidated superstar would spend two years relatively inactive, witnessing the incredible changes in industry interests that his success had caused. It seemed that trap music was posed to become an equal in popularity not only to more traditional Italian hip-hop, but also to Italian pop.

As if to hammer a point home, in 2018 Sfera announced his third LP, “Rockstar”. While polarising given his abandonment of the grimier style that propelled him into fame, in exchange for poppier tunes (think of tracks like “Tran Tran”), Rockstar proved to be the artist’s most successful project to date. The tendency to cross seas musically consolidated itself here too, with features such as Quavo, Rich The Kid, Tinie Tempah.

Nowadays Ebbasta has moved on to even bigger things, becoming a judge on the Italian X-Factor program and adopting new stars under his own label, all the while being steadily placed in the “Top 100 Artists” ranking on the outlet of Spotify.

Having made a truly historic contribution to the progression of Italian hip-hop, having innumerable hit records and being one of the most popular artists in Italy across genres, it is difficult to even fathom what 26 year old Sfera Ebbasta could have left to prove.

What we do know is that whatever he hits us with next is likely to be success.