In less than four whirlwind years – from summer 2020 through present– DICI has evolved from a quarantined 17-year-old free-styling rhymes and mastering the Pro Tools rig in his bedroom, to an internationally renowned, genre-transcendent hip-hop and pop star with nearly 120K TikTok followers, an aggregate 7.5 million streams and views on Spotify and YouTube, and a prolific stylistically diverse discography that includes his 2021 debut EP and 24 popular singles released from 2021-24. To date, he has charted two songs on Billboard: “Beautiful Collision” (which reached #44) and “Eye to Eye” (#98), both dropped in late 2022.
The now 21-year-old multi-talented Italian born. Milan and Miami raised musical hyphenate (singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, label entrepreneur) dropped his second EP Highs and Lows – a six track set featuring “two rap songs, two pop songs and two sad songs” – in the fall of 2023. After producing dozens of tracks as a DIY artist, this marked DICI’s first project helmed by an outside producer. Highs and Lows was produced by Chris C Rod Rodriquez, aka C-Rod, a multi-Grammy nominee whose superstar remix resume includes Rihanna, Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez and #1 dance hits with Lady Gaga, Pet Shop Boys, and Enrique Iglesias.
Testament to DICI’s growing global impact and influence, the artist has received impressive airplay on pop stations in the UK, where he toured for the first time in spring and summer of 2023. His first jaunt was a six-city tour that included performances at 1500-2500 seat theatres in Leicester, Hull, Cambridge, Warrington, Reading and London. Two months later, he returned to England for a wild run of 46 shows over 30 days at smaller venues and festivals, including LeeStock Music Festival in Sudbury (headlined by Natalie Imbruglia) and Wilkestock Festival in Hertford.
Remarkably, instead of performing earlier popular streaming hits, the artist’s seven song set included his most recently penned songs, including some yet to be released. “I feel like the songs I’ve been writing are at a higher level and more diverse,” DICI says. “I’ve been moving away from the straight hip hop that I started with and am now writing and singing more pop songs – and other music I feel is between those two styles. Performing the newest material shows both my longtime fans and those hearing me for the first time where I’m at creatively. Playing in front of large crowds truly validated how I’ve been evolving as an artist and gave me more confidence. That confidence level has really inspired me to further develop my craft as a songwriter. It’s opened up my artistry and ability to tell my story the way I want to tell it.”