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The musicians Jenia and Luca form the duo "Tait La Ragazza". With their contemporary interpretation of hip-hop, the two aim to break genre boundaries and connect warm hip-hop retro sounds with socially critical themes. How that sounds, the duo will present among others at the Düsseldorf Festival in September. We spoke with Luca about what makes the duo's hip-hop so unique, how music relates to visual art, and what the original band name actually stands for.
"Tait La Ragazza" was formed only last year and has already released its first album. How did the duo and the music style come about?
Luca:
Jenia and I have been making music together in various configurations for eleven years and have tried different genres – from rock to metal to pop and electronic. During the Corona period, we went inward and thought about: What genre are we actually doing, and what do we want to make? Our listening habits changed, and we realized that we tend to listen to hip-hop and soul. Then in 2023, we decided to make new music and already released the first songs in September of last year – piece by piece. In May, we released our first album "Doana" and are currently working on the next album. The first song of the album is called "Lemon Trees" and was released last week.
On the website, the music of "Tait La Ragazza" is described as its own version of contemporary and soulful hip-hop. What can we imagine by that?
Luca:
Especially with the new songs, we have increasingly oriented ourselves towards English-speaking hip-hop, which for me is also the core genre of our music, because hip-hop allows for so many freedoms: Hip-hop comes from an idea of sampling. One draws from other genres, gets inspired, and that’s why we perceive hip-hop as the genre that allows for the most innovation: The genre inherently has the non-existent genre boundaries. Through all the musical influences on hip-hop, whether it's electro, rock, blues, or jazz, there are so many creative freedoms. We look up to musicians like J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar, so traditional American conscious rap with serious themes and a lot of warmth. But also to modern sounds like Travis Scott.
Is there a recurring thematic element in your music?
Luca:
Our songs revolve around being in the Anthropocene, dealing with the diverse problems and questions of today's time. We confront many social-critical and social issues, but also personal themes at the same time. With love and loss, for example, themes that always relate to the context of the question: How can we process personal matters in this complicated time for all of us?
This is not about me / This is just about you / It was all about us / And nobody can choose / In this twentyfirst century
What characterizes the matching sound to the lyrics?
Luca:
Our music consists, although we both play instruments, of hardly any self-played instruments, but mainly of sampled beats. In art, one would call this Ready-Made or Arte Povera. You use what you find and thus inspire your own creativity by not playing everything yourself, but changing and sampling. So we work with vinyl, sampling tracks, and a sampler machine, build the beats, and then we both rap and sing equally on top of that.
When reading the band name, one quickly starts to ponder. What does "Tait La Ragazza" stand for?
Luca:
First of all, we were particularly attracted to the beautiful sound of the name. And it is situated in a question, one does not really know what it means. That is also what we want to express with our music. We do not want to be confined or allow clear associations with the name, so that one thinks, for example: "Ah, that is a hip-hop name or a singer-songwriter name." And above all, we want to be unique. To deliver something that has never been heard before. With the name and the music.
What makes the music so unique and how does it differ from other hip-hop acts?
Luca:
Especially in the German-speaking area, there isn't a particularly large scene for English-speaking/international music. There is a big German rap bubble, but we are an international generation and want to be heard internationally with our music, to speak an international language. What also characterizes us is the attempt to connect retro vibes, warm grooves, and feelings from hip-hop with current themes and a modern style.
