Meet Leiti Sene, the rapper breaking taboos and pushing Barcelona’s talent forward
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In a constant search for new sounds, the Barcelona-based rapper presents his unique and highly sexual mixtape JÖM.
“In constant evolution.” That’s how Barcelona-based rapper LEÏTI SÈNE defines himself and his music. At 22, he feels like a kid, a kid that’s still growing up, with dozens of ideas and questions in mind. “I suppose this is part of the restless mind of an artist,” he says. And he is right. His restlessness is probably what has pushed him to explore new styles and sounds, making him one of the city’s fastest-rising artists.
Following T-Rex and #SpanishFeet, the third single Lilo & Stitch ft. Rojuu – together with a video styled by SITA ABELLAN – dropped last Friday, Sène is now presenting Brujería ft. Sticky MA, the fourth single of his new mixtape JÖM, also out today. With this mixtape, he is shutting down an era and starting a new chapter as part of his evolution. “It is a way to give closure to all the experiences I’ve had living with my friends in an apartment in the centre of Barcelona. It is about closing this stage of my life, all good and bad things included,” he says.
While his previous EP TATIMU explained the lifestyle of excesses they were living at the moment and was full of light, JÖM shares everything Leïti has learnt, all his thoughts and all his conclusions, reporting the dark side of the story. “Not in a negative way, but in an end-of-the-day way,” explains the rapper. “It is also a way of showing everyone my internal and external fight with the world.”
With a mix of Afrobeats and Sène’s personal take on drills, JÖM fuses the artist’s multicultural background. Raised by a Senegalese dad and a Catalan mum, he has always had an external view of both cultures, prompting him to question everything and put things into perspective. “At the end of the day, I’m not Senegalese for the Senegalese, and I’m not Catalan for the Catalan. I’ve grown up in this grey area where I was observing things with a different perspective because you don’t always get involved in what society and culture represent,” he explains.
In Wolof, the language most commonly spoken in Senegal, JÖM means honour. But for the young rapper, it also means staying true to your principles, a lesson his father made sure to teach him. “If something is not for you, fuck it!” he says. “This is really important right now, with everything going on with Covid and all the pressure from the government. It feels like we're back to medieval times when a priest would tell people what to do. It’s the same now, getting our orders from scientists we don’t even know. We need to have some honour and critical thinking and that’s what JÖM means – having your own thoughts, being able to put everything into perspective, fighting for what you want and not letting anyone get to you.”
The album is also an introspection to all the values that have sustained Sène’s personality, vitality and light. “It’s not a huge introspection but it’s true that all my music before has had this hedonist shade to it, a lot of excesses and sex and women. But in this mixtape, I talk about more stuff. I show more of myself and there’s an introspection to my imaginary world. You can see a Leïti that asks more questions and sees himself reflected in the concepts of honour, strength and pride, which resonates through all the mixtape,” he says.
“Music is an easy way to transmit emotions and art. That’s all I ever wanted to do.”
Sène’s music is infused with very high sexual energy. From wet fingers to an ode to feet, there’s nothing he’s scared to talk about. “This sexual energy is part of the universe. Nowadays sex is still taboo for society, but to me, it is what shapes and creates everything. Sex is freedom and I express it in everything I do – my music, my sounds, my videos, the way I act. I do everything from a point of freedom, of free-thinking. That’s also why I talk about drugs and sex, they bring us closer to freedom,” he says.
When asked why such topics are still taboo, Sène blames it on religion: “We still have a lot of religious culture and a lot of prohibition. The church and everything it represents have put a lot of pressure on everything – drugs, plants, sex. We have been withholding that for many centuries and now it is time to uncover it, to speak more openly.” But according to him, this is changing – younger generations are talking about such topics out loud, they are freer. “I'm not saying these things are okay, but at least we express them as they are,” he adds. “We must eliminate all this cultural heritage that comes to us from Christianity and religion and that still influences our parents’ way of behaving.”
Sène’s love for music sparked early, but he just wasn’t aware. At 16, he used to entertain the audience at his dance company’s gigs by performing songs. It was then when he realised that not only he wasn’t bad at it, he was actually pretty talented. After this, along with his cousin Sam Davies, he started his journey in music and never stopped. He was hooked. “I realised that maybe I was into dancing only because of the music and that I definitely liked it so much more. That’s why I do it now, because to me music is an easy way to transmit emotions and art. That’s all I ever wanted to do,” he says.
But music isn’t his only way to express himself, acting also serves as a creative output for the artist. His experience in Catalan TV’s channel TV3 and – he believes – the scarcity of black actors in Spain earned Sène a role in the third season of Spanish Netflix show Elite, known internationally. A joyful experience that has made his music career more robust: “I learnt a lot and it gave me a lot of acting skills that I can use now in my videos.”
Following artists like ROSALÍA and BAD GYAL, who took the international scene by storm, Sène represents the promising talent of Barcelona. The city, despite often being underrated, has always been a melting pot of artists of all kinds. The rapper believes the city’s geographical nature – coastal and surrounded by mountains – has played a key role in that: “It can’t grow much quantitatively, but it definitely grows qualitatively. I don’t know what it is, it just has this creative aura that allows people to live well and have time to not only be imaginative but also to do so differently from everywhere else.” And to make it even easier, Sène and his friends have started CUTEMOBB – a Barcelona-based group of friends with shared passions and ideals that unite to make music, to make art, to push Barcelona’s talent forward. Now professionalised, they have recently launched a mixtape titled Cute Tapes, with strong urban beats and some R&B notes.
His insatiable thirst for new challenges and his willingness to learn, explore and improve are what have earned him his success, even at an early age. But he doesn’t feel it’s enough. “To be honest, I feel like for my age I should’ve done a lot more,” he laughs. “But it’s true, I do have a pretty complete career and I’ve accomplished a lot from a young age.” While we relish his new beats, we wonder what’s going to be next. “It’s time for Cutemobb to be solidified. We need to keep pushing it and reminding everyone that we deserve this,” he answers. What’s sure is that Leïti Sène won’t stop being not only creative, but also free and in constant evolution. As he’s always been.
