Malika Ayane and the non-music that revolves around Sanremo
Lightness: this is Malika Ayane’s key word for Sanremo 2026 and for the new course of her career. The singer returns to the Festival for the fifth time, or rather for the “fourth and a half”, as she likes to point out: her last participation dates back to 2021, the lockdown edition. A Sanremo in which there was definitely no lightness. This time he brings “Nocturnal Animals” to the Ariston stage, a song with vintage sounds and rhythm, so much so that on the cover it embraces a disco mirrorball. The song is written with Edwyn Roberts, Stefano Marletta and Luca Faraone, with production by Merk & Kremont.
“It’s a beautiful song, but I shouldn’t say it,” he says smiling during the meeting with the press in Milan. The song also represents the first visible step of a new phase, which began some time ago but which now finds a clear synthesis: a return to Sanremo, a theater tour and a new album expected for the autumn. “Animali notte” will also be released in 45 rpm with a “French touch” version on the B side, with Dov’è Liana.
A return with a different attitude
“Sanremo was in the wishes and plans, because it is an event that has given me so much from day zero. I feel at ease: there is the orchestra, a positive working environment, the right anxiety. But we were waiting for me to be ready, not only with respect to the song. Opportunities like that, if you’re not centered, they chew you up and spit you out.” The attitude with which he faces Sanremo 2026 is clearly different compared to the last one: “I want to have a lot of fun. In 2021 we went to the theater alone, and it was a very strong experience. It brought the value of things back into focus. Precisely because they are important, they should not be feared but enjoyed”.
The path that leads to this return also passes through theater and musicals, experienced not as an alternative but as an integration: “The theater allowed me, in years when I wasn’t clear where I wanted to go musically, to incubate ideas. It was a fundamental space.” A work also made possible by the new recording structure, with the presence of Carosello Records ((licensed to MAST/Believe).: “I feel respected in my identity and in my way of growing. It’s rare, and it’s precious”.
On “Nocturnal Animals”, Ayane says she fell in love with an already very advanced draft: “The main peculiarity is the theme written by Edwyn. This sound world that sucks you in sucked me in too. It seemed like a chance to start again from amazement.” A team effort in which the singer feels like “a cog”, rather than an absolute center: “I’m the front woman of a team. Every listen gets me excited, and it almost never happens with my stuff. I’m usually ferocious in my criticism. Here, however, there’s always a new sound.”
As for truly being a “nocturnal animal”, Malika smiles: between concerts at dawn, planes to catch and training for the New York marathon, she talks about nights lived in an unprecedented way, up to almost mystical experiences. “The greatest achievement, at this moment, is to enjoy the moment without waiting for validation from outside”.
A new album in autumn
The recording future is already in motion and will materialize in the autumn with an album: “I’ve been writing songs for three years, with friends, with unknown people who then became friends. I don’t know what record will come out. But five years to make an album must be intense, otherwise it’s a wasted opportunity.” The goal is to remain contemporary without denying the path: “You make sauce with the past, they told me once”. Also in autumn, a theater tour – the result of a new collaboration with Friends & Partners and Magellano Concerti – starting on November 1st in Fermo.
The non-music that revolves around Sanremo
On the controversies that cyclically accompany the Festival, Malika has clear ideas: “There is always a difference between what revolves around an event and what happens inside. I have seen enthusiasm, availability, people who work willingly. We are privileged. It is up to us to defend the Festival from all the things that can be commented on, because those who are outside must comment, but those who are inside must experience it and make it as beautiful as possible”.
And, speaking of controversy, the question about his possible participation in Eurovision is inevitable, overwhelmed by criticism for Israel’s presence despite what has happened and is happening in Gaza. “My daughter told me: ‘Get ready, because the Eurovision cucumber is coming to you,’” he jokes. Then more seriously: “It’s a question full of thorny aspects and it’s very difficult to answer. Given that on the activism front you know how I’ve been moving for a long time, I think of a recent interview with Velasco in which he asked whether preventing a Russian athlete from participating because he’s Russian is truly a brilliant idea, and the same question applies to a pianist or a dancer. At the same time, all very large stages can be an opportunity to bring positive messages, to try to change a little the direction of how the world.”
Then he goes back to taking it less seriously: “Having said that, I will never win Sanremo, so we are doing all this circus above all to have a title tomorrow: whatever I answer, I will still get a lot of bad things…”.
