What’s your stage name and where are you from?
My stage name is Kareem Cento Gradi and I come from the beautiful island of Sardinia, Italy.
What’s the story behind your stage name?
I used to play basketball and I used to do the sky hook, the Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s move. Many times, while doing it, I said “Kareem”, so some people started calling me like that and I liked it. When I make music as a single artist – which is what I’m doing name – I add “Cento Gradi” in honor to my group, named Cento Gradi, which in Italian means 100 degrees.
Describe your musical journey in three sentences.
Guided by passion. I don’t care about the trends, I care about what I want to do.
Share an interesting experience you had while creating your latest track.
The latest track I realised are featured in the ep All In, Vol.2: No Rules, which is more like a mixtape I released for fun. I created the last track, Donne From Italia, with rappers Shanx from New York City and Fedro from Italy, one of the members of my group. It all started when Shanx sent me a hook over a crunk beat… and than me and Fedro went to the studio to record random verses. We didn’t think about that, we just wanted to have some fun like we used to when we were teenagers. In fact the track is lirically poor, but it sounds dope and we had fun creating it. That’s what matters.
What message do you want to convey through your music?
I just talk about everyday situations, about the aspirations, the thoughts of people behind 15 and 26. I try to speak to them with my music, to let them know that we all have been in some situations and we always found the way to get out of it. Of course, speaking to that age, I also like to speak about parties and have some fun. Life has its highs and lows, that’s normal, and you have to take it as what is.
Tell us about a challenge you faced during production and how you overcame it.
The biggest challenge I faced is a logistical challenge. When I moved from my island to Rome to study at university, I arrived in a new city where I didn’t know a single person. I didn’t have a place to record, and I couldn’t build a home studio because I was on rent and with other people. So I started make some networking, I met the right people and I was able to record there, in an incredible studio ride by one of my university’s colleagues.
If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?
There’s so much artist that I love. If I have to say only one artist, I would probably say Andre 3000. I think he’s one the best rappers of all time – one of my favourites for sure – and plus he does few featurings, so it would be very exclusive.
Where do you see your music taking you in the next year?
First of all, let’s see where my heart takes my music.
What’s the next big step for you as an artist?
At the moment, all I want is to perform in a music festival. Reaching 10k monthly listeners on Spotify make me dreams every day more, who knows…
Where can we hear/watch your most recent work?
Spotify/Apple Music is the best. Here’s the Spotify link for my most recent release: https://open.spotify.com/intl-it/album/5Sm60JjiQGzOi1iMd4NtjH?si=aC2Z-qHlRL-Y8XL-fQZ5MA
