From 26 to 30 May 2025, ÀP – Antimafia Pop Academy hosted A School Called Tribe, a week of training, writing and collective rap production promoted by A Sud – Ecologia e Cooperazione APS as part of the European project Soundroutes Feat Hip Hop, co-funded by Creative Europe.
Eleven young artists – from Italy and Colombia – worked together, guided by rapper and trainer Francesco “Kento” Carlo, to transform the environmental and social contradictions of the city into words, sounds and images.
Rap, politics and climate: “Isola di Calore”
The workshop led to the creation of a song and a collective video clip entitled “Isola di Calore”, available on YouTube.
The lyrics — written and recorded over five days — recount the wounds of climate change through the lens of urban experience: the hot asphalt, the unbreathable air, the distance between those who can afford green spaces and those who remain trapped in concrete.
The powerful metaphor of “heat islands” becomes both a denunciation and poetry: “between the smoke and the noise, there are those who still dream of the shade of a tree that is no longer there”.
A school of artistic resistance
The school’s methodology combined non-formal education, peer learning and collective creation, alternating writing workshops, flow exercises and recording sessions with discussions on climate justice, inequality and rights.
The activities were facilitated by the A Sud team (Martina Leigheb and Alessandro Bernardini), with technical support from Stefano Campetti and the ÀP staff.
The aim was not only to write a song, but to build a political space for expression, where hip hop becomes a common language for reading the present and imagining alternatives.
A bridge between art and activism
The collaboration with ÀP made it possible to involve young people from the centre’s educational and creative programmes, creating connections between Soundroutes’ journey and local experiences of popular education and grassroots culture.
At the end of the workshop, the participants expressed their desire to continue working together, bringing “Isola di Calore” to public assemblies, schools and environmental festivals as an example of how music can be a tool for awareness and mobilisation.
A growing network
“A School Called Tribe” confirms Soundroutes’ vision: to build a European network of artists who use hip hop as a practice of social, ecological and cultural justice.
From Rome, new voices are joining this collective choir, demonstrating that revolution can also arise from a beat, lyrics and a community that chooses to raise its voice.
