In a recent interview with the Corriere della sera, Giusy Ferreri spoke about her participation in this year’s ‘Festival di Sanremo’ – saying she has always seen music as the undercurrent or soundtrack to her life.
To her, from this perspective, the song competition loses its reason of being.
Born in Palermo, Sicily on 17 April 1979, Giuseppina Gaetana Ferreri earned her start during the first Italian edition of X Factor in 2008 where she came second. Her voice is deep, mysterious, and gritty; awakening a myriad of emotions similar to her hometown of Palermo.
In June 2008, Sony BMG released her first single Non ti scordar mai di me, written by Tiziano Ferro. The album Gaetana went four times Platinum with over 314,000 copies sold. In October 2008, she released the song Novembre, which debuted at number one in Italy. The reason to such success – whilst being a pop singer, Ferreri goes beneath the surface to bring depth to what these days has become an otherwise superficial musical genre.
Life has not always been easy for Ferreri. To support her music career, she worked as a cashier in a supermarket for ten years. Before her appearance on X Factor, she recalls going through a very tumultuous time in her life but a time when she met her now partner of nine years, Andrea Bonomo.
At thirty-seven years of age, she is now pregnant and says she definitely felt the symptoms of her pregnancy whilst performing her new single Fa talmente male at Sanremo. During the performance, she was short of breath, suffered heart palpitations and nausea. As a true professional, Ferreri’s performance was inspirational and without fault.
The new single Fa talmente male is off her new Album Girotondo. The song is an ode to strong women that have the courage to break free from routine and put themselves first. This sentiment can resonate with women on a deeper level, propelling the success of this single in an age where women are making their voice heard. About the song, Giusy says:
“I refer to the escape of a woman who longs for freedom and does not identify with the chores of her daily life. A strong woman who is not afraid to pause from her duties so to speak, to take time for herself, to recapture the dreams of her youth, to feel joy within herself, to break away from the roles she is expected to play. Which is what all women want deep down.”The video clip for the song shows Ferreri in a rain-drenched city, perhaps a metaphor for the storm of emotions that we all have within ourselves. Although it is raining, Ferreri sings and dances, brightly dressed, as if she were breaking through the inner darkness and turmoil.
Ferreri’s songs are often a response to the frenetic nature of today’s society, which is why she believes her previous single, Roma-Bangkok with Baby K was such a success. The song achieved eight Platinum discs, the video reached over 178 million clicks on You Tube: that made it the most watched Italian video clip of all time. She says about the song:
“… it seems to me that we are all taken by a frenetic rhythm of life. Even children are so overburdened by their school activities that are left with little time to dedicate to their passions. I think that this is the problem of today’s life and the reason for the success of Roma-Bangkok: it transmits a feeling of lightness which is almost totally missing in our times.”
Music has the immense power of changing your mood and making you forget the problems in your life. Each note, each lyric is a hand reaching out, pulling you away from the negative into a dimension of positivity, possibility and ecstasy. Ferreri’s voice and delivery of her songs are a true testament to this.
Girotondo, Giusy Ferreri’s new album is available on iTunes.
