A rapper who skilfully moves between different musical aesthetics and whose trademark is socially engaged lines. Asthma has also made a name for himself as an actor, as well as a songwriter for other artists.
Asthma (real name Mateusz Wardyński) is a rapper, songwriter and actor born in 2000 in Bielsko-Biała. His musical career began rather unusually. While still in high school, he rapped for fun to one of Kendrick Lamar’s songs played at double speed. He showed the recording to his parents and, as a result, shortly afterwards his dad took him to a rehearsal of his band. The group was called KinKong and performed music close to the style of Rage Against The Machine. Recalling that stage, Asthma laughs that he was freestyling without much finesse and far too loudly. However, this is where it all started – with weekly rehearsals in his father’s guitar band. ‘So I took my first steps as a vocalist totally in the underground and also with my dad, which is great’, Asthma told me in an interview for Dwutygodnik. Not many rappers can say that about themselves.
What the artist certainly retained from this early period is a punk ethos and social commitment that can be heard very clearly on All Is Love, the first English-language EP recorded by Asthma in 2020. These few tracks are kept in a style close to Rage Against The Machine or the cult album Judgment Night, on which the greats of American rap joined forces with bands such as Sonic Youth, Faith No More and Slayer. In the track Hatred, for example, one can hear clear inspiration from Cypress Hill, one of the groups that appeared on this important compilation. Evidently, Asthma had not yet developed his own distinct style at the time, but anarchic, critical, socially engaged lyrics have remained his trademark ever since.
Manifesto
Later that year, the musician’s first Polish-language works were released: Centrala and Charakterystyka Bloku. The former – a deliberate reference to a famous Brygada Kryzys track – in particular showed the rapper as a committed social activist, a champion of the people. Standing at the head of a group at a housing estate, Asthma rhymed: ‘It doesn’t matter who rules the country / Because we’re the ones divided, they’re the ones together’, and his message was received very positively by listeners and the media. Such a committed image of the young artist was only reinforced by an album released the following year with the bold title Manifest. Recorded with producer Młody, the album dealt with the oppression of the system and the need for spiritual revolution, in the latter case directly alluding to the work of Robert Brylewski’s other group, Izrael. On his acclaimed debut, he also touched on the subject of the climate crisis. In the track Asthmatic, we hear: ‘For all the hip-hop heads, brothers and sisters / Before the ice melts, a salute.’
On this album, Asthma and Młody moved away from the punk influences so evident on the All is Love EP. Manifest was already firmly rooted in the hip-hop tradition, an icon of which is undoubtedly the American artist KRS-One, who makes a guest appearance on the track Never Forget. Built around a prominent kick drum, Młody’s slow beats left plenty of room for Asthma. Interestingly, in terms of his delivery, the rapper was at this stage clearly gravitating towards old-school Polish rap – for example, comparisons with Paktofonika appeared in reviews of the album, not without reason. However, with the song Ostatnia Mila (The Last Mile) featuring guest vocals by Kacha Kowalczyk from the band Coals, Asthma was sending out a signal that, despite the emphatic way he expresses his views, he would not shy away from melody. The chorus of this song proves that, in the case of this artist, this is an artificial opposition (‘They feed the green slogan / In the background Bangladeshi sewing rooms / Will there still be a forest in 50 years?’).
Manifest received a very warm critical reception, and its author won Discovery of the Year at the Lech Polish Hip-Hop Music Awards, as well as climbing to the first place of the ‘Same Sztosy 2020!’ list prepared by Warsaw’s Radio Kampus. On the Interia portal, Marcin Flint wrote a positive review of the album: ‘”Manifest” works well as an “intergenerational expression of discord”, as a record that is unadorned, communicative, free of diplomacy and calculation. It’s not over the hills and far away, you have it right under your nose.’ In other enthusiastic texts – published not only in the cultural sections of newspapers and portals – the phrase ‘voice of a generation’ came up again and again. For Asthma, this proved problematic, because from the outset it involved attempts to fit it into the political divisions of the time. In an interview with Dwutygodnik, the rapper said:
It’s worth remembering the socio-political moment in which I was working on this album: the parliamentary elections, the pandemic, the Women’s Strike.... Life in Poland at that time was full of tensions. I just don’t like the fact that speaking out against the oppression of the system and structures of oppression is sometimes reduced to political agitation [...].
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asthma, photo: Mariana Hernandez
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Polyphony
Although Asthma did not personally release any albums in 2022, an album was released that was crucial to his future career. I am referring to Ruleta, recorded by Przemysław Jankowiak, better known as 2k88, co-founder of the groups Syny and STRATA. For his producer album, the artist invited more than 30 artists more or less connected to the Polish rap scene. In an article that appeared in Tygodnik Powszechny, Asthma mentioned:
‘Rulet’, in that sense, was firmly Gen-Z. For me, this generation is strongly about inclusivity, about building awareness towards diversity and opening up to it. I think divisions and rigid rules were important in Polish rap for a long time: here is the old school – and here is the new school [...]. But recently I’ve been seeing more openness on stage, we’ve all come a bit closer together.
Ruleta not only received great reviews and secured 2k88 a Polityka Passport award in the Popular Music category, but also helped many representatives of the hip-hop scene to establish fruitful relationships. Asthma befriended Kosi, a rapper and graffiti artist who co-founded the cult group JWP, among others, and was surprised to discover that, despite their age difference, they had a lot in common: a punk-like ethos and openness to different musical aesthetics. Shortly afterwards, Asthma invited Kosi to appear on his next album, and Kosi reciprocated by hosting him on his solo album To Wydarzyło Się Naprawdę – Oprócz Tego, Co Zmyśliłem (This Really Happened – Beside the Parts I Made Up).
Asthma’s second album is entitled Nowe Życie (New Life) and was released in spring 2023. Before that, tired of being called the voice of a generation and of being patted on the back as the author of ‘old-school, real hip-hop’, the rapper had released two nu-school tracks in an aesthetic reminiscent of Playboi Carti, which stood in obvious contrast to the image the media had created of him. Asthma played games with the listeners, because in the end none of the tracks made it onto the highly anticipated album. At the same time, Nowe Życie seems to be a less political album than its predecessor. Or perhaps put another way: more diverse, with a predominantly personal perspective, although there is no shortage of broader insights and social commentary (El Ch*po). It’s also a more stylistically diverse album, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given that each track was produced by a different producer and guests include Kosi, Rosalie, Miętha and Łajzol. Marcin Flint wrote in Polityka magazine:
Asthma’s multi-style has a common denominator stemming from his personality, and this is a great compliment for the young artist. Despite the multitude of producers and many guests, ‘Nowe Życie’ sounds like an album, like a process of coming to terms with oneself, of going through a labyrinth in one’s own tired head [...].
A newer life
In 2023, Asthma was also developing as a lyricist going beyond the rap format. The same spring as the arrival of Nowe Życie saw the release of Rosalie’s album MOTHERLODE – a singer-songwriter creating in pop and modern R&B aesthetics – for which Asthma wrote some of the lyrics. In the same year, the rapper also made a guest appearance on Paulina Przybysz’s album Wracając. What’s more, he combined all these musical activities with acting in the third season of the TV series Belfer as the character Kuba. In 2024, Asthma received a nomination for the O!Lśnienie award granted by the Onet.pl portal.
For the past year, Asthma has been working on the follow-up to Nowe Życie. The rapper reveals that during this time he prepared a whole lot of very diverse material. ‘Regardless of the obstacles, I kept moving forward and kept recording until I decided that the day of my 24th birthday was a good date to end this phase. In the end, I didn’t stop at 10 or 20 songs – the songs for the album were chosen from over 30 very diverse tracks.’
Asthma promises that, on the musical side, there will be no shortage of surprises on his third album, while the way the stories are told and the source from which they come will be consistent with what he has done so far.
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The experience of recording the first two albums, understanding how the industry works and the realities of being in it – all of this only strengthened my conviction that I was going in the right direction. Above all, it’s about independence and self-determination: what I want to say and why. You can’t give up, you have to be consistent – it’s the same old story, but it’s true.
