The UK's Home Office confirmed this Tuesday that it has banned the entry to the country of rapper Kanye West, now known as Ye, who is very controversial for his provocative lyrics, in which he has even praised Adolf Hitler. The decision comes after an intense review of his visa and puts an end to weeks of controversy over his participation as a headliner at London's Wireless Festival, which will take place in July. Official sources report that immigration law powers have been used to ban the artist due to his history of antisemitic, racist, and pro-Nazi comments. In its resolution, the government considers them to be "incompatible with the maintenance of public order and social cohesion in the country".

As a result of his short film Beef (2019), which starred a trap singer, director Ingride Santos (Barcelona, ​​1983) came into contact with the scene freestyle And she was completely fascinated by the energy and purity of those rap competitions where young people face off armed with improvised verses over a hip-hop beat: "They're self-organized battles where 200 to 300 people gather on the weekend, something very ephemeral that can't be capitalized on or recorded." Santos began looking for a girl to build her feature film debut around and soon discovered Latifa Drame (24 years old), known as La Tiniebla (The Darkness) in the art world, one of the young stars of that scene she wanted to capture. "She had only been to a couple of battles and already had 300 people hanging on her every word and celebrating each one." punchline and a compilation on YouTube with the best moments."

In Catalonia we have an infallible method to measure the popularity of a musician: appearing in the choral song of the Marató de TV3. In the 2020 edition there was Miki Núñez, Antonio Orozco, Els Catarres, Nina and Dyango. And Lildami, conclusive proof that urban music in Catalan has definitively entered the collective imagination of the masses. It has taken almost twenty-five years to stop thinking of local rhyme as an anecdote and to start thinking about a scene that is still incipient, but with a promising future. It's a question of normality: if young people from all over the world are asking for urban the native language has to take its rightful place. The wind is blowing in our favour, but the key is the emergence of a number of young, talented and uninhibited musicians who have made a splash. These are the key facts and names of the past, present and future of music in Catalan.