Taxi Driver (Rkomi album)

Taxi Driver is the third studio album by Italian rapper Rkomi, released by Island Records on 30 April 2021.

The album peaked at number one on the Italian Albums Chart, becoming the best-selling album of 2021 in Italy. and the second one in 2022. It was certified eight platinum by FIMI. In 2022, a remastering of the album Taxi Driver + was published, which featured the song "Insuperabile" which competed at the 72nd Sanremo Music Festival, and Italian Singles Chart topper collaboration "La coda del diavolo" with Elodie.

Concept and compostition
The album was written and produced by the artist himself, with severals collaborations, including Dardust, Mahmood,Tommaso Paradiso, Gazzelle, Ariete, Irama, Sfera Ebbasta, Roshelle, Ernia and Gaia. Taxi Driver continued Rkomi's departure from rap to pop music, also showing rock influences. Its tracks are built with a cantautore approach, and create a heterogeneous mix of influences. In an interview with Rolling Stone Italia, Rkomi explained the inspiration behind the collaborations and the blending of different musical genres: "'With the collaborations with musicians like Jovanotti and Elisa: [...] for me it was enlightening, because I realized that until then I had missed a lot of things. I knew hip hop well, but I didn't know anything about everything else and I had no idea that you could work in another way as well. [...] I didn't feel the adrenaline, the thrill of risk anymore. Then came the idea for Taxi Driver, an album of atypical collaborations, able to cross many different territories, from indie to trap to pop to rock to singer-songwriter, 'bringing' guests into their homes. Even at the risk of ending up in places where I don't find myself. [...] I don't think there is this big difference between a singer-songwriter and a rapper, except in the deeper, simple but not trivial approach. I would like my audience, sooner or later, to shine the way mine shine when I listen to a piece by Lucio Dalla or Lucio Battisti.'"The album was titled after Martin Scorsese's 1976 film, which is also cited in its artwork, showing Rkomi leaning on a yellow cab. The title of the album also refers to the film, used as an expedient by the artist to narrate the concept behind the album as told in an interview with Vanity Fair Italia: "'I have seen it at least six times. It's a disruptive film, I like to see all the personalities of Travis Bickle, I love Robert De Niro. I liked the image of the cab because of the concept of the album, which is full of passengers, my guests, who I take around the city into unfamiliar territories. Then there is also the idea of De Niro's Vietnam, which in my case is my past, with due proportion.'"

Critic reception
Claudio Cabona of Rockol described the artist as "capable of spanning genres" yet not finding him completely in focus. Cabona appreciated the lyrics, in which he finds a "singer-songwriter approach," through which he "describe simple moments with great evocative power," through metaphors and similes, which gain strength with the artists involved for "the willingness to make real duets and not dull, packaged collaborations." However, the journalist stressed that "too much heterogeneity runs the risk of resulting in a lack of precise identity" finding it at times a "playlist album" presenting "sounds that have already been dissected" and finding "little care in diversifying the storytelling around the guests."

Antonio Silvestri of Ondarock dwelled on the singer's flow, remarking that "the suppleness has remained" but he tends toward the pop sung by Carl Brave x Franco126. The journalist stated that the singer "now inhabits a borderline territory, happily exploring its possibilities and declining his idea of hybrid in different ways," finding as his best moments "the Latin sophistication" of "Mare che non sei" with Gaia, the "very free reinterpretation of Lucio Battisti's classic" in "10 ragazze" with Ernia and "the balance between r'n'b, pop and rap" in Cancelli di mezzanotte.