SIDE BABY

Once known as DarkSideBaby and formerly one fourth of trap clique Dark Polo Gang, the now solo artist Side Baby (real name Arturo Bruni) has maintained his status as of one of the most relevant young rappers from Rome.

Although it's correct to make a very sharp distinction between Side's group- and solo material, it would be irresponsible to erase his career prior to his exit from DPG.

In fact, Side had been part of what would come to be known as the Roman "new school" of trap, even before his rise to fame with the group circa 2015. Some material is even available online with a young Bruni along with nw famous Roman artists, e.g. Ketama126.

Later, with his entry into DPG, Side would form and develop his style. In this development we can notice a wider trend in the themes he chooses to portray.

In the initial days of "Crack Musica" his style of lyricism was appealing for his premature of adoption of trap tropes of money, drugs and fashion that only became mainstream years later, but lacked introspection and other more "conscious" elements. By the culmination of his career in DPG, with the collaborative "SickSide" with producer Sick Luke, Side had started employing a much more thoughtful and thematically cohesive lyricism, with references to Bruni's troubles with fame and substance abuse, ending up with a much more emotionally meaningful and impactful version of his previously used trap formula.

Even though this is a touchy subject that would require knowledge of Bruni's very-personal life to be discussed fairly, given the artist's own declarations, it's clear that a very impactful period in his life was the one marked by his substance abuse. Curiously the solution of that abuse coincided with his distancing from DPG.

"Medicine" a track explicating Side's drug issues, was the first track released by him as a solo artist. This point of arrival completed the aforementioned development. From Medicine onwards, while more lighthearted tracks like "Nuvole" (feat. Drefgold) among others were released, this more vulnerable aspect of Side would be the one dominating his first solo project: Arturo.

Being titled after his birth name, this album produced by Nightskinny exposes a more sentimentally mature and lyricism-focused on top of a sound unlike that of the DPG days. The project made one thing clear: 

While we had come to think of Side Baby as an obviously sensitive person who somehow perfectly executed gritty and aggressive trap music, "Arturo" successfully incorporates this personal complexity into music normally thought of as "superficial" or "wholly materialistic". 

Immediately after the success the album was, Side continued to collaborate with Night Skinny on "Mattoni" as well as with new acts such as PSICOLOGI. He is also slated to perhaps reconnect with DPG in the future, in some way.

Wether or not that's true, Side's trials and tribulations followed by his success to reinvent himself makes sure that the 1994-born rapper's career will be exciting for the foreseeable future.