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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.”
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“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.”
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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.
Irama
Andrea Ariano/Billboard Italia
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.
Irama
Andrea Ariano/Billboard Italia
J Balvin will make his anime debut in 2025, voicing a key character in the second season of Solo Leveling: Arise From the Shadow. The Colombian artist will voice a major role in both English and Spanish in the current season that premiered Jan. 4 on the Crunchyroll streaming platform. Explore Explore See latest videos, […]
The deterioration of Drake and LeBron James’ friendship appears to be part of the fallout from the Drizzy and Kendrick Lamar feud. Drake hit the stage for night two in Perth of his Anita Max Wynn Tour on Wednesday (Feb. 5), and in fan-captured video, flipped around some lyrics to “Nonstop” during the show to […]
Gracie Abrams knows that if Taylor Swift were a man, she’d be the man. In a new interview with Cosmopolitan published Wednesday (Feb. 5), the 25-year-old pop star called her friend an “athlete, a brilliant businessperson and a genius writer” before emphasizing Swift’s massive impact on the world. “There’s also nothing that comes close to […]
After a hard day of work on the Toronto set of their upcoming, as-yet-untitled Christmas movie, the Jonas Brothers did exactly what you might expect: they went to a Camp Rock 1 & 2 trivia night at a local bar. In an Instagram video, Nick Jonas explained they decided to make the unscheduled stop after finding out about the trivia night focused on their 2008 Disney Channel musical movie in which they played singing siblings alongside Demi Lovato.
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“So we are surprising all the people right now… let’s see what happens,” Nick said in the selfie video in which brothers Joe and Kevin can be seen in the background. In an separate video posted on YouTube, Joe told the packed bar that, “we were just kind of looking for an open bar, I guess this was the only place,” as fans screamed in excitement behind him.
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The two-minute clip also found Joe beaming in from the set of the movie after wrapping up for the day and explaining that the trivia night was just minutes away from their hotel. “What better way to end the night than by surprising some people? Hopefully they get excited, we’ll see,” he over footage of the trio rolling into Hemingway’s restaurant and bar.
They were, of course, super excited, with the fan screaming, giving the siblings high-fives and filming the moment on their phones for posterity as the trio pushed through the crowd. “Best of luck, I hope the best table wins,” Joe said, hoisting up a beer to toast the contestants.
Nick added, “we didn’t think we’d be any good at this, but we did study in the car on the way here, just in case we were asked a question.” They then agreed to answer a single question, with Kevin taking over hosting duties to ask: “Which character gets put in charge of the Junior Rockers?”
Breaking protocol, they asked the freaking out fans to just yell out the answer, which, of course, they knew right away: Jason (aka Kevin). “Nice to meet you guys, have fun tonight!” Joe said to more screams, confidently stating “well, that worked” as they made their way back to the car. “So our fans are the best fans in the world,” Nick said on the sidewalk. “We loved stopping in there, they were so amazing.”
The fun didn’t end there, though. Just a few hours earlier, they filmed a bit where Nick swears he hears the dulcet tones of Kenny G’s soprano saxophone in Joe’s trailer, repeatedly asking his brother if the sound he was hearing was that of “Kenny G rippin’ solos.” Spoiler: it was.
The JoBros have been busy on all fronts lately. In addition to the tentatively titled Jonas Brothers Christmas Movie due out on Disney+ later this year, they teamed up with country trio Rascal Flatts last week on the heartbreak anthem “I Dare You” as the follow-up to their Marshmello collab “Slow Motion.”
Check out the videos below.
Longtime friends Elton John and Brandi Carlile have joined together for Who Believes in Angels?, a new studio album the pair recorded over 20 days starting in October 2023. Interscope will release the set on April 4, but the title track was released on Wednesday (Feb. 5).
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The pair wrote and created the album with John’s long-time co-writer Bernie Taupin and producer Andrew Watt. The quartet are nominated for an Oscar for best original song for “Never Too Late,” the end-title track to John’s documentary, Elton John: Never Too Late, which is included on the album.
“As my Farewell tour came to an end, I knew I wanted to make a new album with Brandi, I wanted to shift gears and do something different from anything I’d done before,” John tells Billboard. “I have always found Brandi so inspiring, our friendship was so close, and I just had the instinct that we could produce something really amazing. Creating Who Believes in Angels? was challenging, and I had a lot of self-doubt, but alongside Bernie Taupin and Andrew Watt, we ended up writing 10 songs in 20 days and it was one of the most joyous and exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had in my life.”
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Billboard has an exclusive look at the emotional, candid trailer that captures the recording of the album and the vulnerabilities and frustrations that gripped John as the quartet worked at Los Angeles’ Sunset Sound Studios.
“I’m 76 and I want to do something different. I don’t want to coast,” John says. But the recording sessions proved difficult, given that John was exhausted from finishing his final world tour. “I was a nightmare. Angry, I was tired, I was irritable,” John says, as he throws his earphones down in frustration and Watt snaps at him for being so “impatient.”
“Elton is prone to moments of insecurity, especially when the stakes are high,” says Carlile, who has “idolized” John since she was 11. She admits to “having a hard time connecting to Elton” at times during the process and wondering why he wants to make the album given that is it radically different from how he has created before.
Throughout the trailer, the tension escalates, as John gets so frustrated, he tears up a lyric sheet and throws it on the floor, declaring, “I’m going home,” and Watt directs the crew to cut the mics.
But then John realizes that Carlile, Taupin and Watt are depending upon him and suddenly the process gels and the creativity begins flowing again. “We’ve made an album that I think is spectacular for all the ages,” Carlile says. “My life has been taking me to this album the whole time.” They are joined in the studio by Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chat Smith, renowned session bassist Pino Palladino and Pearl Jam guitarist Josh Klinghoffer on the album that spans rock, pop and Americana.
As the trailer wraps, John begins crying, but this time it’s happy tears.
“Who Believes In Angels? feels like going into another era and I’m pushing the door open to come into the future,” John said in a statement. “I have everything I’ve done behind me and it’s been brilliant, amazing. But this is the new start for me. As far as I’m concerned, this is the start of my career Mark 2.”
“I’m still reeling from the fact that I got to do it,” added Carlile. “I think all ships rise with Elton John’s standards for songwriting, and it was an incredibly challenging and inspiring environment to work in, everybody throwing in ideas, everybody listening to everybody else’s ideas. It felt like a family. The world is a wild place to live in right now. It’s hard to find peace and triumph. It’s a radical act to seek out joyful and euphoric happenings. And that is what this album represents to me.”
Other than Taupin, John has seldom worked with collaborators: he and his musical hero the late Leon Russell made two albums together with T Bone Burnett and he has collaborated with lyricists like Tim Rice for musicals, including The Lion King and Aida.
Fans who pre-order Who Believes In Angels? are eligible for a chance to buy tickets to An Evening with Elton John & Brandi Carlile at the London Palladium on March 26.
Who Believes In Angels? tracklisting:
The Rose Of Laura Nyro
Little Richard’s Bible
Swing For The Fences
Never Too Late
You Without Me
Who Believes In Angels?
The River Man
A Little Light
Someone To Belong To
When This Old World Is Done With Me
Billboard’s editorial staff unveils its first-ever Hottest R&B Artists List, featuring proven veterans and rising stars in the genre.
Seal has never been in truer form than in Mountain Dew’s new Super Bowl commercial, which premiered Wednesday (Feb. 5), featuring the British singer serenading Becky G on a truly wild water safari.
The spot opens with the “Shower” singer cracking open a Baja Blast and taking a sip, which magically transports her onto a raft — driven by the soda company’s own Mountain Dude — through an idyllic mountain-lined stream. The passengers then pull up next to a choir of seals singing atop a rocky formation.
That’s when Seal the musician makes an appearance to perform a parody version of his 1995 Billboard Hot 100-topping hit “Kiss from a Rose” dedicated to Mountain Dew’s product — except he looks a little different. With his human head animated onto a seal’s body, the R&B star belts, “Baby, I compare it to a kiss from a lime on the bay/ Ooh, the more I think of it, it’s strange I’m a seal/ My flippers can’t hold Mountain Dew/ It slips right on through, what a shame.”
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In an extended version of the ad, a baffled Becky G looks on and says, “Well this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”
That’s when Seal — the human one, not seal the seal — appears in the back of the boat to quip, “Good looking seal.”
A 30-second cut of the whimsical commercial is expected to air during the Super Bowl broadcast Sunday (Feb. 9), which will find the Kansas City Chiefs facing off against the Philadelphia Eagles with a Halftime Show performance from Kendrick Lamar. Mountain Dew had previously announced that the “Mamiii” artist would be part of the campaign, but Seal’s cameo is a surprise, and in a statement, the “Fly Like an Eagle” artist called it an opportunity he “just couldn’t resist.”
“I had a blast coming up with new lyrics and loved collaborating with their team to bring this campaign to life in such a fun and unexpected way!” Seal shared.
Becky G added, “Partnering with a brand that knows how to bring the energy and get the party started feels like a perfect fit. Prepárate, Super Bowl LIX – vamos a pasarla increíble!”
Watch Seal perform “Kiss From a Lime” for Becky G below.
Singer-songwriter Crowder ascends to No. 1 on Billboard’s Christian AC Airplay chart (dated Feb. 8) with “Somebody Prayed.” During the Jan. 24-30 tracking week, the single advanced by 3% in plays among the ranking’s reporting panel of stations, according to Luminate. Meanwhile, on the genre’s overall Christian Airplay chart, “Somebody Prayed” holds at its No. […]
Ye — formerly Kanye West — is advising all rappers to stand down from battling Kendrick Lamar outside of one circumstance.
West sat down with Justin Laboy for their The Download interview released on Tuesday (Feb. 4), which saw him give Lamar props, but he also exuded confidence he could get the “Not Like Us” rapper in a rap battle because he himself is a “psycho genius.”
“If you rap against Kendrick, you will lose,” Ye promised. “This man does this. You know in Street Fighter, you get Chun-Li, you get a certain kick, and no matter what, you can’t beat that thing?”
He continued: “If you rap against Kendrick Lamar, like Joe Budden said, ‘Never rap against Kendrick Lamar.’ If you rap against Kendrick Lamar, it’s a difficult task, but perhaps it’s something … I’m a psycho genius, so you know, it could be.”
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While Ye believes Drake suffered defeat at the hands of Kendrick, he doesn’t think anyone should count out a 6 God comeback in 2025.
“It was really challenging for me to make ‘Father Stretch My Hands’ and different things, and this man got ‘Work’ a top five song ever created in life and we doing the drums bringing Metro [Boomin] on,” Ye said.
“So Kendrick killed Drake — he’s dead,” Laboy claimed. Ye agreed, but doesn’t think it’s for good, going on to compare Drizzy to NBA star Steph Curry. “Yeah, for now,” West replied. “You can’t ever count out Steph Curry. That man might get 200 points in one song.”
Ye credited his frenemy Drake with adding “something to the algorithm to our frequency. He advanced us. Future advanced us and now Kendrick advanced the frequency.”
Yeezy briefly injected himself into the Drake and Kendrick feud last year when he took shots at Drizzy on a remix of “Like That.” West and Lamar went bar-for-bar on The Life of Pablo‘s “No More Parties in L.A.” anthem in 2016.
Watch the entire interview below.
