Sanremo 2025: Shablo, a producer/manager on the Festival stage

With “My word“, Shablo debuts this year in the race in Sanremo as an artist. Next to him are Guè, Joshua and Torento, with whom he chose to present the covers of “Amor de Mi Vida” and “Waiting for the sun” together with Neffa on Friday evening. “I am very happy that the figure of the producer is finally put on a par with that of an artist,” says the artist, guest of the Rockol Lounge, at the headquarters of the Tenco club.

Rockol: It is not the first time of a producer on the Sanremo stage, but it is the first time that it is such a figure is the main artist.
Shablo: I am very happy that the figure of the manufacturer is finally put on a par with that of an artist. In the rest of the world it is already so, the figure of the manufacturer has already been raised. In Italy the mainstream does not yet know what a producer does; So, I am very happy to be able to make my contribution to explain a little what happens. The manufacturer is a bit like the director of a film, the one who has the vision of what you go to build then, which involves the actors who are the singers, the protagonists.

Rockol: How was the choice to participate in the race?
Shablo: For me it was born quite spontaneously, I was working my album, I absolutely did not have in mind to present a song for Sanremo, I had made this song from an intuition of Joshua who had made this melodic part of the refrain and a collaborator of mine , Jacopo Pesce, who works with me in the record part, went crazy feeling the song. He said: “This is a hit.” For me it was not even a single. Then, fortunately there is a team that sometimes makes you open your eyes on the matter, so from there the decision to present it and now here we are.

Rockol: When you told Guè, Tormento and Joshua, “Let’s go to Sanremo”, what was the reaction?
Shablo: It was fun. Nobody expected it with such a song. Not having been made for Sanremo, it’s not that I said: “We make a piece for Sanremo” – as usual, since everyone tries to have a hit for Sanremo.
Guè said: “Are you crazy?! We will arrive last! “. For him it is a song that has made his own, thinking about how he does the pieces, so a piece totally in rap style: he does not even have a real topic if I have to say. It is a song that has a form that makes itself contained, I say, because in any case it has the typical language of rap. Joshua has started singing for a few years, he is an emerging in all respects: finding himself on this stage, catapulted in such a short time, did not make it either.

Rockol: For torment it is a return, after the participation of 2001 with the undertone.
Shablo: For me it is the most interesting part, because it has a story about this very strong stage, which unfortunately has not brought him luck, so return today and being able to close that story differently, in my opinion, is very important.

Rockol: In reality, you sanction you have already done it, behind the scenes. What effect is it to be done in the change of perspective?
Shablo: I did it several times from behind the scenes: as a manufacturer, as a composer, as manager, winning it too. I already knew the behind the scenes: the mechanisms, the great machine it represents. Doing it as an artist is a new experience, a totally different emotion, and I must say that it is much easier to do it as an artist than as a job to the works, I can guarantee this.

Rockol: This year you are in Sanremo in double guise: as an artist and as a manager. It is not the first time that it happened at the Festival: previously there had been Celentano, who was in the race and then had the clan with his clan artists.
Shablo: I thought I was unique. There is always someone before I ruin me …

Rockol: How do you manage a situation of this kind?
Shablo: It is a slightly anomalous situation for me. Being a manager and artist at the same time is a bit strange, because you have to split the personality constantly. I asked my artists some patience because I will be a little less present in this week. I have a fantastic management team that gives me a hand to follow. However, I followed all the preparation, the songs, and we worked on all the preparation together. In this week I asked for some patience because obviously I have no physical time, and we are also competitors, from a certain point of view there is also a healthy competition.

Rockol: Would you prefer to win you or who won one of your artists?
Shablo: For me it is already a victory to be here. If I had to choose between me and my artists, I would like him to win one of them, I would be happier, I say it truly without false modesty.

Rockol: Can you tell us the choice of the cover?
Shablo: It happened in a very natural way. It was a matter of bringing something to the great repertoire of Italian music on this stage. And to be able to present two songs so iconic to our kind, as “Amor de Mi Vida” of the undertone and “Waiting for the sun” of Neffa, for me it is a somewhat unique opportunity. It was a very symbolic choice, both torment and Neffa represented two of the greatest influences I had in my training period when I approached Italian rap. Being able to bring them to this stage for me is truly a great emotion. And it is also an honor to share the stage with torment and neffed.

Rockol: Yours is a particular proposal: you are the main artist, accompanied by 3 artists and a choir. How did you think the staging of the song?
Shablo: When I had to think about the performance, I had to invent something new, of different.

Not being a singer, at the same time I didn’t want to be even relegated to a simple musician, perhaps put on the side on stage. With a designer we invented this console that we created exactly physically. Above the console there will be what are the classic hip hop equipment, with a controller recreates the turntables to scratch. There is a new generation MPC to send sequences, to make rhythmic parts of drums and samples. And then I proposed the gospel choir because inside the song there are great gospel, blues, jazz influences. I also liked to bring this great influence that is in the song, which is mainly remarked in the video clip of the song, which resumes the aesthetic of the imagination all the great Spike Lee films, from which it takes inspiration The song.

Rockol: He is an imaginary “Old School”, right?
Shablo: Absolutely. And it goes to try a little in the origins of black music. I felt this necessity, because I believe that today’s urban has a little lost this contact with the roots, and it is a great shame because I believe that it can be enriched even more. There is a great approval in today’s musical production, and having influences can enrich the arrangements a little more, or bring organic, played, tools in vogue.

Rockol interviews are carried out at the Tenco club, in collaboration with Evolution and Scf.