MamboLosco, author of "Facendo Faccende" tells himself

The American rap scene has always had an influence on William Miller Hickman III, aka MamboLosco, and been part in his DNA. He was born in Vicenza (in 1990), a city that’s home to a US military base and therefore counts a high percentage of American inhabitants, but he grew up in the United States, his father’s homeland. «I had the chance to listen to rap music long before it exploded in Italy too: I remember having always been enraptured by the sound of hip hop ever since I was a child, from Cypress Hill to Ice Cube».

His real recording debut came in September 2019 when he released the album Arte – soon certified Gold – which includes one of his first highly successful songs Twerk, featuring his friend and colleague Boro Boro and which has reached 50 million streams on Spotify and 23 million views on YouTube. Together with the rapper he then released Caldo in the summer of 2020, a joint album with 157 million streams that stayed in the Top 20 of the best-selling albums for four consecutive weeks and which includes the hit Lento, currently a Triple Platinum Album.

«Music is my outlet and the channel with which I can express my way of making art, of speaking to my audience»

His success is the fruit of his ambition, driven by the study and admiration of immortal icons in this musical genre, as MamboLosco says: «Dr. Dre, 50 Cent and Eminem have made records that are milestones of rap culture and music. Other benchmarks have been and still are Kanye West with the album The College Dropout in particular, and Wiz Khalifa with Kush&Orange Juice. I also have to mention Future: I’ll never forget his concert in Milan, there were 100 of us and most of us have since become major artists in Italy».

In 2021, the singles Demone, certified Gold, Sku Sku feat. Pyrex and Pull up were all released. BlaBlaBla was instead released in 2022, with which he again obtained Gold Album certification, #Sì feat. Tony Effe and Bandito. In 2023 Mambolosco released the album Facendo Faccende, an immediate success that once again confirmed his position among the most influential rappers in the Italian trap scene. Nevertheless, he says: «Right now I feel like I’m only just starting out, I know that I still have to prove so much and my creative flow has yet to give its all. Music is my outlet and the channel with which I can express my way of making art, of speaking to my audience».