CHAPTER 4 RAE ARGENTINA TO THE WORLD

Argentina Sessions: Duki

In rock, American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen is dubbed "The Boss". In the trap world, "El Jefe" is Argentina's Duki, from the Almagro neighborhood in Buenos Aires.

Duki's real name is Mauro Ezequiel Lombardo, he is 27 years old and has released three albums. He is the most popular urban music artist these days.

He was the most listened to artist from Argentina on streaming platforms and he is currently touring Europe. Next December, he will perform in River Stadium: two concerts.

 

 

Duki reivindica al trap como forma de contar su universo en Antes de Ameri, su nuevo disco - Rolling Stone en Español

 

Next year he will perform, alone, in the imposing Bernabeu stadium in Madrid.

It will not be the first time he performs in a football stadium. Last year he gave four shows at Vélez, in Buenos Aires city, the first time an artist of his generation not linked to rock music got to perform in a venue this big.

When he performed at the gala party of the Gardel Awards, Duki used auto-tune to tune to enhance the bass of his voice, and rock legend Charly García strongly criticized him for that.

His response was that he had seen García in Vélez, under the rain, back in 2009, and that he had found that performance "wonderful".

 

 

At this point the music listener might already be wondering what he or she was listening to in recent years. Because the emergence of Duki and other artists of the so-called urban genre that today dominate the scene, is not something from a few days back. Duki, for example, emerged eight years ago in the freestyle competitions of El Quinto Escalón and his name is nothing new to the youth.

Born in a neighborhood with a strong Tango background, he grew up listening to Argentine rock. In his childhood neighborhood of Almagro lived Luca Prodan, the Italian who led the band Sumo, and wrote the song "Mañana en el Abasto" ("A Morning in the Abasto") -the Abasto is in Almagro-, which is considered one of the most impressive descriptions about this area of Buenos Aires City.

 

 

Duki speaks, in his songs, of love, disillusionment, drugs and lifestyles. One could say the same of... Tango.

Like so many other young people dedicated to music, he went through several changes in his career. For example, in his beginnings he was part of a group, "Modo Diablo", together with the now famous Neo Pistea and YSY-A, the latter recognized for having recently participated in a song of the Bajofondo Electro tango ensemble led by Academy Award-winner Gustavo Santaolalla.

And now Duki is a soloist. And a very successful one.

And because he is very popular and a trendsetter, not only because of his tattooed face and the continuous change of his hair color, he is dubbed "El Jefe", the Boss.

 

Adrián Korol, director of RAE Argentina to the World

Based on an original idea by Alejandro Pont Lezica