3 reportages by Lorenzo Meloni.

Fair, Love & War

“It’s not easy trying to be a legend. One is born to achieve great things, it’s not something you learn over time. Obviously I know I am great, the hard part is to convince the rest of the world. Women have realised it immediately, there’s always a queue to work with me. Blonds, brunettes, redheads, when I film a video I am spoilt for choice, although this does not garantee success.
Do you know what it means to be a legend? It’s a status that has to be earned. It’s hard as everyone expects great things from you. You can never surrender, there is never a moment’s rest. You always have to look like the tough guy, your hands have to constantly communicate something even when there isn’t much to say, people need to realise who they’re facing.
Do you know what it means to promote a legend? You need to be the leader of a crew. Singing isn’t enough and playing is useless if you don’t have video to share with your Facebook fans. Drugs, alcohol, music, women, fast cars and tatoos are essential instruments. It doesn’t really matter if I still live with my parents and not everyone believes in me.
When you become a brand you have make sure people know about it . When I arrive at the bar everyone can feel the rapper in the air. Their eyes are on me, I feel their respect. I’ve never been under house arrest, they’ve never found me with coke and I sometimes regret it as the punters haven’t seen much of it. There are quite a few yougsters and fans here and we need the money.
In order to live, music is not enough, you needs a winning attitude and I have it. It’s what I tell myself every night before I fall asleep. I’m not Fabri Fibra, but I’ll become just like him. I’ll overtake all those people attempting the road to success. I won’t become a hopeless and wasted 40 year old rapper. My audience and fans will remember me just like Fabri Fibra. Who knows if Fabri Fibra is famous in New York...”

These images are part of a project I started called ‘fair, love and war’. It focuses on the young people of my generation living in the suburbs, who use rap music as a status symbol and a way to let off steam but also to find a position in this society.

Many of them are bored, apolitical and distressed. They look at success as a chance to run away from an eternal adolescence or from difficult economical and personal situations.

Yemen

"Governing Yemen is like dancing on the heads of snakes." Former president Ali Abdullah Saleh knows the country well he had been ruling for 33 years; a country at war even before its unification. Forgotten by the press, Yemen daily life is stressed by US drone attacks in the South, and fighting among tribes in the North. In fact, hundreds of tribal groups are trained as soldiers, and there are about 103,000 refugees from war zones. Yemeni people have experienced their own revolution. They are tired of a motionless politics that is engaged in corrupting the power. But the revolutionaries and supporters of the former president still do not believe that the 2014 elections will lead to a tangible solution. President Hadi’s transitional government has two years to establish a constitution and to bring to the elections a country free from riots and violence.

Meanwhile, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh states he will be again candidate for the role of President of the Republic.

Libye

After Gaddafi’s death I went to Libya to document the democratization process of the country. In the face of a government still incapable of taking effective decisions, the country is divided by internal rivalries, personal vendettas and dominated by raids perpetrated by armed rebels.