On a leather sofa and surrounded by latest season sneakers, Thunder He poses naturally in front of Tania Sieira’s lens. For a son of hip hop, diving into new sneakers is being in his element. He is wearing some Nike Air Force 1 … Brand new white, indivisible model of rappers from the 90s onwards. From the neighborhood of La Boca comes this young artist from Buenos Aires, who at 23 years old has already achieved what many pursue during a lifetime. His name is Mateo Palacios Corazzina.
“I’ve been part of that group since before I was born,” he says about hip hop. There is no lack of reason: his father, Peter Danger, is one of the living legends of Argentine rap in its origins. Thus, Trueno was 14 years old when he began to stand out in improvised rhyme contests, known as ‘rooster battles’. «I remember accompanying him to sing with 20 people. That today he joins me to sing with 50,000, is the most beautiful movie we can experience. Being his son is a source of pride,” he says. In fact, his alias, Trueno, was created by Pedro, his father.
Justifying his success in his ancestry would be a mistake, even knowing that his grandfather -Yamandú Palacios, Peligro’s father- was a singer who collaborated with Joaquín Sabina, Joan Manuel Serrat or Rafael Alberti, among others. In the ‘cockfights’ in which the very young Trueno grew up, there is no room for nepotism or shortcuts, only for ingenuity and skills. sharp rhymes. Standing on a stage he understood that his success only depends on him.
«Music is a return to many things that marked me in life. Something strong in music is claiming what one belongs to and continuing to build that path,” he expresses in one breath. For the artist, singing in Spain has something of closing a circle: «I grew up listening to SFDK, I grew up watching Zatu compete. “Those people marked Argentine rap and Latin rap in a very strong way.” Next July 13, he will play with the Andalusian group.
The last Dance
This Friday, Trueno releases his third studio album, ‘The last Dance’, an ode to hip hop full of references, full of Caribbean rhythms and without a single collaboration. «In 2023, hip hop turned 50 years old and this is an album dedicated to culture. “I feel like it marks a closing: the last dance of the first 50 years,” explains the Argentine.
“The main idea is to represent all the genres that are within hip hop culture,” says the singer, so that no one is surprised to hear mixes of R&B, dancehall, moombathon, reggaeton, diskofunk or house with hip hop. The fusion of styles with rap and reggaeton has been key in the recent wave of Argentine artists to rise to the top of the world in music in Spanish, today, just as successful as in English.
And the Flemish? «I consider flamenco because I love to delve into the native genres of the countries. Right or wrong, I vindicate South American and Creole music. In Mexico the corridos or here the flamenco… each country has a different recipe, it’s crazy. I like to learn from those formulas.
Roosters in the chicken coop
The formula for success, in fact, cannot be formulated. But there is always something about being at the right time and place. There are few phenomena like ‘El Quinto Escalón’, a street rap contest of which Trueno was a part, but also Duki, Wos, Paulo Londra or other Argentine artists who have broken the international chart. “Those of us who came out of the ‘battles’ still have that internal demon, that competitiveness,” says Palacios.
«We are friends and I feel that that makes the Argentine scene so fruitful. I am very happy that the same guys that we were with a diver [chándal] “broken in a square with a dream, let’s be the representatives of the country and the country’s music today, so the success of any of my colleagues for me is my success too… and national,” he explains about the phenomenon of ‘The Fifth Step’.
«Competing with myself, that is the most difficult thing. “That’s a bit cliché,” admits the man from Buenos Aires, “but I try to improve my previous album, more than someone else’s.” It doesn’t seem like an easy task: his first album, ‘Atrevido’ (2020), went quadruple platinum. His second album, ‘Right or wrong’ (2022), went two platinum.
The humility that surrounds the character, present in his music and his message, could mislead the figures that surround him: more than 12 million monthly followers on Spotify, and listening numbers that number in the billions. The Argentine artist, from June to the end of the year, will sing in 11 countries in Latin America, he will give seven solo concerts in Spain, one in Denmark and four in the United States. Next July 4, the Madrid capital will host a young legend.
