Irama Goes Fast: Meet the Italian Pop Star Competing In Sanremo Festival 2025

Irama continues to grow, and very rapidly too – like a stone that rolls slowly and picks up speed, as he himself defined the way he would like his songs to go. His participation in the Sanremo Festival, scheduled for February 11-15, is already the 29-year-old’s sixth. For bookmakers he is among the potential winners. However, the song he presents in Sanremo – which will also be released in Spanish for the Latin American market – is titled “Lentamente,” which means “Slowly.”

“It tells a carnal story: the destruction of a love that is seen as eternal and instead ends. Slowly, and on both sides,” is how he introduced it. “It has a British atmosphere given by the Hammond organ, but also a very Italian melody: I wanted to present a song different from the usual.”

Irama (stage name of Filippo Maria Fanti) may seem cold and distant only if you look at it from afar. Up close, this multi-platinum artist is humorous and kind. He has his very precise ideas, especially when it comes to music. He says: “This song simply moves me deeply, which is why I presented it for the contest. In the studio I wrote down the melodies with my authors and producers, but without thinking about Sanremo.”

Didn’t you have [Sanremo] as your goal?

No, I wouldn’t have wanted to go back to Sanremo. My record company [Warner Music Italy, ed.] and my team were warned. But then I kept listening to the song, even at night, and I liked it more and more. So at a meeting – where it is rare for me to participate – I played this song. Everyone cheered.

You had other plans at first?

Right. I wanted to focus on the tour and my new album, but Sanremo is a great opportunity to make everyone listen to your music. I’m interested in that.

“Lentamente” will also be published in Spanish for the Latin American market. How do you think you will be perceived there?

I still have to build everything in that world, but I sense a certain interest. I would like my music to have as international a vision as possible.

Have you read the journalists’ reviews?

Just because they sent them to me. It’s not something I like to do.

Was there anything that wasn’t understood, in your opinion?

Someone wrote that the songwriter is only Blanco, and this in itself is madness, because I always co-write my own songs. Then I read other things that didn’t convince me. Perhaps journalists have always seen me as too distant, which happens much less with normal people. It’s a shame. I would like to communicate well with everyone.

What does it depend on?

Sometimes we focus too much on appearances. It seems to me that we look more at aesthetics than emotion. But my songs are way more linked to the latter. I would like my songs to be conceived as boulders that roll slowly and gain speed. This was the case for my previous song “Ovunque Sarai.” However, if they had given me excellent reviews, I would have been worried: all my successes were born from low marks.

Maybe you’re not a person who opens up to everyone.

When I was a child, they taught me a certain type of education and respect for each other’s space. I don’t allow myself to joke too much with those I don’t know well, and this lack of lightness is interpreted as coldness or even arrogance. But I don’t think I’m cold.

At the Sanremo Festival you will also sing the cover of “Say Something” by A Great Big World feat. Christina Aguilera. Was it difficult to choose the song to reinterpret?

A lot, because I’m not an interpreter: there are never covers in my albums. It’s a completely different sport. For this reason, I looked for a song with a style not too different from mine.

When will you release your new album?

I don’t know yet. Many people, when they meet me on the street, no longer ask me for a photo but ask me when my album gets released. There was also a WhatsApp group called “Album 2024” which quickly became “Album 2025.” Until it’s perfect, an album shouldn’t be released. And, for me, albums are never perfect. When I really think I’ve done everything possible to publish the best work possible, then I release it.

Do you want to explore any genre in particular?

It will be a more serious record, I think. However, it will be played a lot with analog instruments, because it is influenced by live performances which are growing more and more.

Where are you writing now? Once upon a time you went to Salento, in Southern Italy, for many days.

True. Years ago, we went there, to places that didn’t cost much. I remember that in a house we even had a stable with a pig inside! Now I love going to beautiful places, perhaps with a swimming pool and a garden, also because I generally don’t take holidays. But then I lock myself in a closet to write. I tried to write in Sardinia, for example, but how do you do it? If you find yourself in front of a sunset you look at it, not write! I think the same thing about concerts: why shoot a video without actually watching the live performance?

Who did you see in concert last year?

Just friends of mine. I went to support them, even singing myself: Annalisa, Riccardo Cocciante, Blanco.

How come you don’t like to go on holiday?

I really can’t. I’ve done it in the past, I went to Thailand, for example. At most I can last four days. After that, I feel useless, I feel like I’m wasting my time.

Would you like to change?

My dream is to get to make music inside a nature reserve, surrounded by the animals I love so much. I wish I could get to a point where I make music more slowly and sporadically.

No one ever answers yes — are you going to Sanremo to win?

I believe that there really isn’t anyone from the new generation who is too attached to the competition. Maybe it was once important to someone, but now it really isn’t. Of course, it’s a great moment if you do win and then go to Eurovision, with that incredible opportunity to make yourself known there too, like Måneskin did. But the challenge is the last thing on your mind.

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