Masked Italian rapper and guitarist Red Sky has released an official lyric video for “Neo Tokyo,” taken from his album Nostalgia del Futuro, out now via Epictronic. The song imagines a future where humanity lives in peace and music has become the universal language.
Stream Nostalgia del Futuro here.
Through images of everyday life, vulnerability and hope, “Neo Tokyo” explores music’s power to bring people closer, offer comfort and unite them, even when words are not needed. The video matches that vision with a neon-lit futuristic city.
Nostalgia del Futuro
The album is inspired by Maxwell Maltz’s book Psycho-Cybernetics and by the longing for the person we are still becoming. Red Sky wrote it shortly before a life-changing move to Japan, and it works as a personal and sonic manifesto, bringing together metal, rap, electronic music, reggae and traditional Japanese and Middle Eastern influences. Across the record he explores identity, ageing and self-worth from a cross-cultural perspective. We covered an earlier single from the album, “Shoganai”. The album is available on CD through Taiga Music, with a separate Japanese CD edition via Tower Records Japan.
Kintsugi Music
Active since 2011, Red Sky calls his approach “Kintsugi Music,” after the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. It blends rap, modern metal, electronic music and global influences, with Japanese culture at the center, and his lyrics, written in Italian and Japanese, deal with feeling like an alien in an increasingly inhuman world and with protecting your own star, doing what you were born to do. His covers have been shared by artists such as Gué and Fabri Fibra. In more than 15 years he has released 14 albums and opened for Italian rap artists such as Jesto, Shade and Rayden. His music speaks to fans of conscious Italian rap like Caparezza and Rancore, modern metal acts such as Linkin Park, Rammstein and Falling in Reverse, and anyone drawn to Japanese culture.
Our Take
Few artists try to combine rap, metal, reggae and Japanese traditional music on one album, and fewer still actually move to Japan while doing it. “Neo Tokyo” is one of the gentler, more hopeful moments in Red Sky’s catalog, and its message that music can unite people without words fits an artist who has built his career on crossing borders. If you like your heavy music with a side of genre experiments, this one is worth a look.
