Angelina Mango: “When I write I want my legs to shake”
An album that like a tornado incorporates different elements and internalizes them, then returning them to the public. “Poké melodrama”, after two EPs, is Angelina Mango's first album and presents itself as the summary of the many musical souls of the young artist who won the last edition of the Sanremo Festival with “La noia”. Mango, on tour in 2024 both in Europe and in Italian festivals and clubs, ranges between different genres and registers, just as if they were the tastes of a poké. In fact, within “Poké melodrama” we find the songwriting of Marco Mengoni and Bresh, but also the electronic and urban music of Dani Faiv and VillaBanks, these are the feats desired by Mango.
Angelina, aren't you tired of singing “La noia” everywhere?
No, I don't get tired of singing it (smiles, ed.). But at the same time I felt the need to release a larger project, which is why I'm very excited about the release of the album, especially because it comes after a period in which giant things happened, from the Sanremo Festival to Eurovision. With this album I want to make a more complete discussion on what happened inside me, because we saw everything on the outside, but not on the inside.
What did you feel you needed to bring out?
My growth, relationships with people, with my family. One thing I told myself: don't spare yourself. Just like on stage where I feel like I have to give everything to my audience, I tried to do the same for this project too. In this album I say everything, without filters. You may like my music or not, but I am satisfied because I have no regrets about this first project.
Can we define it as a record with multiple identities on a sonic level, but at the same time, on the authorial front, with a strong search for its roots? In fact, you talk a lot about your home and your family.
I was afraid that this album would be too heterogeneous. I said to myself: can I make a record with so many different musical directions? Then I answered myself: this, however, is precisely its strength. When I go into the studio I never have a goal, I never know what I want to do, I let the music transport me. The only way I could be consistent with myself was to be inconsistent in my music. Yes, I talk about my home, my roots and I do it by moving from one song to another, the common denominator is me, my story.
A striking song is “Indian File”, in which you sing: “They look for poison in the garbage outside the door of our house; they only find 400 butts of guests busy hugging mum.” Is it the morbid, unsolicited attention after your father's death?
There is a resentment in this song, you can feel it. And it is a resentment towards those prejudices that can be found in the stories, in general, of everyone. In mine there have been many, not only in family matters. In “Indian File” I resent those who try to find the rotten things in things, at all costs. The story of a very intimate moment… it's a piece that didn't have any deletions when I wrote it, it was instinctive, there were no changes.
If your record was really a poké, how would it be eaten?
Taking the elements individually. Luckily I have a lot of experience with poké (smiles, ed.), I like to enjoy every aspect. And that's what I did with the musical poké that I created. I want you to see and feel that my vision of music is totally free.
Did you sometimes feel a loss of balance while working on it?
The moment I no longer lose my balance while writing, I will stop writing. Yes, the album made me lose balance and rightly so.
Three tastes, three songs for three different moods?
The desire not to think about anything, the lightness: “Crush”. Then the resentment, the moment of anger, as I said: “Single file”. Finally I add sweetness and melancholy: “A beautiful song”.
Is “Edmund and Lucy” about you and your brother?
Yes, I wrote it last December. He sent me a piano track and that melody stuck in my head. That plan spoke. I remember when I wrote the text: also in this case there were no erasures, the page of the diary was untouched. In the piece I talk about us, about our history. We deserved a song of our own and I think the reference to the world of the Chronicles of Narnia is strong, with Edmund and Lucy, like us, who hide inside the wardrobe and travel. We faced many difficulties together and I am proud to have kept this song, played by him, on the album.
From the Sanremo Festival to Eurovision, what has changed in you in this period?
I feel like I can do things that I couldn't do before. I wasn't convinced I could handle the tension of the Festival stage and instead I experienced it like a child who goes there and has fun. Furthermore, the idea of experimenting on stage scares me much less. After Eurovision, going on stage, I felt a new feeling of security. But it is not a “settling down”, it is the awareness of being someone who is communicating, in a convinced way, what he feels and does it in front of people's eyes.
Several of your songs also have a strong corporal component.
Yes, experiencing music with my whole body is something I can't give up. And I also like to see people move. At the same time, however, there are songs on the album that I can sing with my eyes closed, still, among people. My conception of music, at the moment, doesn't have a precise objective, it's just faithful to the idea that when a song is born, it must have the power to make my legs shake while I'm writing it. If this doesn't happen, then there's no point in continuing to write it.
In “Smile” you sing: “a 6 year old girl with a giant smile comes towards me and says; you know that my father is in the sky like yours”
It is a piece that I particularly care about. I wrote it on the plane. I had met a little girl, after an instore, who told me that she had lost her dad, but she was very happy because she was getting to know me and meeting me. And seeing that smile made me understand that when you feel strong pain, you risk dirtying everything with that pain. That little she didn't want to do it, she was able to block it out and enjoy the moment with me. I said to myself: I want to do it too.
Were the feats really necessary or were you enough?
I believe they were important, if they hadn't been there I wouldn't have written those songs. They are all collaborations that have taught me a lot. They are experiences that enriched me and in some way were linked to each other, without them the album would have come out differently.
