Giuseppe Cucè has always carried his art like a flame—something that burns quietly but intensely, shaped over decades of introspection, creation, and a lifelong devotion to the act of feeling deeply. Born in Catania on September 8, 1972, he grew up with an instinct for expression that passed through many forms before arriving at the sound he carries today. As a child he dreamt of writing, of turning sensation into something tangible. He first painted his thoughts onto canvas, then entered the world of contemporary dance, using the body as a vessel for emotion. Throughout this evolution, one thing stayed constant: the pull toward music, toward storytelling that lived not only on the page, but in the breath between notes. Those early explorations eventually crystallized into songwriting and composition—his truest path, the one that allowed all his artistic identities to coexist.
Over the years, Cucè worked with musicians who helped shape his sonic world, among them producer Riccardo Samperi, percussionist Francesco Bazzano, guitarists Antonio Masto and Edoardo Musumeci, and cellist Alessandro Longo. Their collaborations created a musical language that feels simultaneously warm, ancient, and contemporary. In 2008, he began an artistic partnership with Samperi’s TRP MUSIC, which led to La Mela e il Serpente, an album soaked in saudade and poetic melancholy. Its release opened doors on the Parisian stage—Le Trianon, L’Alhambra, Le Petit Saint Martin—allowing the Sicilian songwriter to carry his stories far beyond home.
Now, with “21 Grammi,” Cucè steps into his most profound and fully realized work yet. Published by TRP Vibes and distributed by EGEA Music, the album turns inward and downward, into the territory of the soul—its weight, its memories, its fragile truths. Inspired by the legend that the human body loses exactly twenty-one grams at the moment of death, supposedly the weight of the soul itself, the album transforms this mystical idea into a living, breathing journey. Instead of asking what happens after death, Cucè asks a different question: What is the weight we carry as we live? What fills these twenty-one grams while we are still alive—love, grief, longing, faith, desire, fear, the hope of rebirth?
This reflection becomes the thread that binds the eleven songs together, forming a concept album that unfolds like a cinematic mosaic. Each track becomes a chapter, a confession, a gesture of vulnerability. There is sensuality, nostalgia, introspection, and quiet revelation. Acoustic textures meet delicate electronics, sacred tones touch the profane, and the warmth of real instruments blends with atmospheric synths. Samperi’s production builds a sonic architecture where nothing is accidental—every detail contributes to a world suspended between earthiness and transcendence.
At the center of this emotional universe stands “Ventuno,” the song Cucè describes as the conceptual heart of the album. “Ventuno” is not only a title track in spirit, but the gravitational force that holds the narrative together. It captures the essence of what “21 Grammi” wants to say: that within the fragile, immeasurable space of the soul lies everything we have ever felt, everything we have ever feared losing, everything that keeps us alive. The song moves like a slow exhale, a suspended moment where the listener is invited to pause and recognize their own weight—the invisible one that cannot be measured but is always present.
“Ventuno” feels like an awakening. Its atmosphere is soft but charged, built on tonal shadows and small sparks of light. Cucè’s voice carries both confession and clarity, as though he is speaking from inside the very place he is describing. It reflects a soul in transition, neither broken nor healed, but aware of its own depths. The lyrics drift through themes of memory, longing, and the search for meaning, embodying the delicate tension between wanting to let go and wanting to hold on. In many ways, “Ventuno” serves as the listener’s guide into the emotional architecture of the album—an intimate overture that asks them to lean in, to listen not only to Cucè’s story but to their own inner shifts.
Around this core, the other tracks expand the narrative with cinematic nuance. “Fragile equilibrio” offers a gentle melancholy, a portrait of vulnerability that feels familiar to anyone navigating life’s contradictions. “È tutto così vero” pulses with visceral sensuality, alive with the physicality of desire. “Cuore d’inverno” quiets everything down, bringing in a winter-like stillness that holds a hint of hope. Even the Spanish version, “El mundo es verdadero,” carries the emotional DNA of the album into a new linguistic space. And the live reprise, “Attraversando Saturno,” ties past and present, reminding listeners that Cucè’s evolution is continuous—every project a new chapter, every chapter another layer of soul.
Recorded at TRP Studios in Catania, with mastering by Pietro Caramelli and Claudio Giussani, the album is as thoughtful sonically as it is emotionally. Luca Guarneri’s photography and Gianluca Scalia’s directorial vision complete its aesthetic framework, reinforcing its cinematic, poetic identity.
In “21 Grammi,” Giuseppe Cucè does more than explore the soul—he honors its weight. He sings not to escape life, but to feel it more clearly. Each song becomes a fragment of something larger: the journey of an inner world that refuses to go silent. And in the end, the album reminds us that those twenty-one grams—whatever they truly represent—are everything that makes us human.
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