Lazza MUST win Sanremo Music Festival 2023

Lazza is the last hope amongst youngsters to avoid a more than probable Marco Mengoni or Ultimo victory.

Lazza during a performance of his last tour

Another night in Sanremo and the top four positions seemed locked for today’s final and, of course, there were no women in the race for the win. Even though there are still some kinds of expectations for the viewers. Lazza, the Milanese rapper, has risen as a ray of hope among the youngsters. Right now, the singer is in the top 3 positions. His song Cenere debuted in the Spotify top 50 global (#40) with more than 2 million streams and yesterday, his cover of La Fine with the popular Italian singer Emma Marrone was the most watched performance during the live show.

Lazza is the perfect example of the renaissance of Sanremo as well as the Italian music industry. Normally, rappers and other underground artists were different to the festival, as they would always win the same kind of male ballads. They thought they had no chance and, therefore, they did not even try it. But something shifted in 2019. Mahmood’s first win with Soldi approached the festival to a more urban and younger scene. Until then, Mahmood was nearly an unknown artist, but he won and Soldi became one of the bestsellers in Italy and a worldwide hit following his second position on Eurovision. The same scenario occurred with Maneskin victory in 2021 and followed by BLANCO (and Mahmood) winning in 2022, as they were some of the youngest winners in years and helped to engage teenagers and young adults to the festival.

Therefore, a Lazza surprise win tonight would engage even younger audiences, and would approach the biggest artists in Italy (Sfera Ebbasta, Marracash, Fabri Fibra…) to a possible participation in the coming years. Instead, a Marco Mengoni or Ultimo win tonight would drive off the kind of acts named before. And in terms of Eurovision, Lazza would secure another top three finish for Italy and it would also encourage the most popular artists in Europe to participate in the contest. More importantly, he would be the first established urban artist to compete in the contest, taking it to new scenarios and would follow the modernization and actualization that Mahmood, Maneskin, Kalush, Konstrakta, S10, Go_A and many others started in the past few years.