Every year, Sanremo manages to bring Italy to a standstill.

The only other occasions capable of doing that are the European Championship and the World Cup. Fortunately, Sanremo does not have to go through the play-offs and, for better or worse, every year we all end up discuss ing the presenters’ outfits and judging their style choices—while perhaps paying too little attention to the songs themselves.

And yet, this year’s Sanremo feels different to me. More authentic. More personal.

It all began in 2025 with a simple phone call: a request to help prepare Welo for the journey that would take him to Sanremo Giovani. His musical style was relatively new to me, but it reminded me of a fundamental truth: technique has no genre. Technique means study, discipline and awareness. It is the foundation of everything.

And so the work began: preparing a young rapper to step onto that stage and pursue his dream.

Bound by a strict confidentiality agreement, I agreed to work alongside Welo: a young artist deeply determined to push beyond his limits. Rehearsal after rehearsal, he overcame many difficult moments and always found the strength to begin again. Together, we followed an intense path that eventually led us to the final of Sanremo Giovani.

He was up against the extraordinary Angelica Bove, whose song perhaps had a more traditional “Sanremo” feel. Welo’s “Emigrato,” however, tells a different kind of story: real life. A grandmother passing down her values, wine as a symbol of togetherness, tractors instead of skyscrapers, and undeclared work as an everyday reality. There are no filters and no pretence—only authentic fragments of real, often uncomfortable lives.

Welo does not bring only music to the stage. In his videos, he involves young people from the working-class neighbourhoods of Lecce, giving visibility to faces and stories that are rarely represented. His work carries a powerful social message precisely because it is so sincere.

And that is exactly why I am so happy to have supported him.

After his elimination in the final, just one step away from the Sanremo stage, it seemed that the journey had come to an end. But that is the nature of music: you have to listen to it, because it speaks to you through its notes.

When I found out that Welo would be behind the official Sanremo theme song, I was delighted—for him and for myself. Because, deep down, his music tells the story of every one of us: the struggle to pursue a dream in the land where we were born—a land that sometimes fails to recognise the true value of those who live it every day.

This was my pre-Sanremo journey.

A journey made of technique, hard work, emotion and truth. A journey that I hope Welo will continue for many, many years to come.

Go, Welo!