In recent months, in Rome, we have been running a rap writing workshop as part of the Soundroutes project.
This was a free workshop open to young artists, activists and people who use music as a tool for expression and transformation.
The aim was not only to make music, but to build spaces where people could discuss the present, the city, the body, anger and hope. From these meetings, from the conversations outside the social centres and from the verses written collectively, “Isola di Calore” (Heat Island) was born: a song about the climate crisis from the point of view of those who experience it in their neighbourhoods, in their exposed bodies, amid concrete and asphalt.
“Heat islands” are not just a scientific concept, but a material reality for those who live in increasingly unliveable cities. Working-class neighbourhoods, often marginalised, where green spaces are absent, public spaces are shrinking and extreme heat becomes a daily precarious condition. As extreme weather events multiply, environmental inequalities are also growing in cities: not everyone experiences the crisis in the same way.
The song, written by Usiku, Marte and sognicomeobiettivi, intertwines poetry and rap in a powerful story that starts from the body and its sensations – the lack of breath, the burning skin – and opens up to a collective and political level. It is a denunciation but also a statement. A declaration of existence in spaces that often leave no room.
The video by Clara Anicito, shot between urban and natural landscapes, stages this very contrast: between concrete and earth, between dance and immobility, between words and silence. Even the make-up – which during the opening poem transforms from a bare face to a “concrete” face – is part of the visual narrative.
“Isola di Calore” is not just a song. It is the result of a journey of listening, writing, complicity and struggle. An artistic and political experiment that aims to remind us that making music can also be an act of environmentalism and social justice.
Listen to the song on Spotify
Watch the video on YouTube
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Authors:
Marte
Usiku
sognicomeobiettivi
Produced by:
Usiku
Libberà
Fusy
sognicomeobiettivi
Mix e Master:
Leangotti24krecords
Filmed by: Clara Anicito e Luca Bonaventura
Video editing: Clara Anicito
Creative support: Kento
Special thanks to:
ÀP – Antimafia Pop Academy for providing space and equipment
Extinction Rebellion Italia for their support and archive footage
Some scenes were filmed at Lago Bullicante ExSnia, a place liberated from speculation thanks to the Forum Parco delle Energie. Let’s defend it together.
This track was created within the framework of the #Soundroutes Feats Hip Hop project, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme and coordinated by A Sud.