Who is Welo, who sings the Sanremo 2026 theme song “Emigrato”
After “Tutta l’Italia” by Gabry Ponte, this year the theme song for the Sanremo Festival 2026 will be “Emigrato (Italiano)” by the Lecce rapper Welo. His name will be unfamiliar to most: born Manuel Mariano, born in 1999, the rapper was one of the contestants on Sanremo Giovani with his song, “Emigrato”. However, having reached the final of the competition last December 14th, Welo was unable to gain one of the two passes available to actually participate in the Sanremo Festival in the “New proposals” category reserved for the finalists of Sanremo Giovani (the other two are assigned to the winners of Area Sanremo): he was eliminated one step away from victory. At the time of Welo’s elimination, however, Carlo Conti ventured a proposal to the rapper from Lecce: transforming the refrain of “Emigrato” into the official jingle of the Sanremo 2026 Festival. Now the official announcement has arrived, through a video call between Conti and Welo himself published by the latter on Instagram, definitively confirming that the promise made on the stage of Sanremo Giovani is reality: “Emigrato” will be the official theme song of Sanremo 2026.
But what spectators will hear from February 24th to 28th will be a revisited version of Welo’s song, renamed “Emigrato (Italiano)”. The complete text is not yet available: it will be available starting from February 24, when the song will resonate during the evenings of Sanremo 2026. But according to what Rockol has learned, it will be the chorus that will change.
The original one read:
Emigrant, unfortunate, lazy
This is what I sign, full stop
I don’t like working, I stay in the square, na-na-na
Then we toast with some disability money
The one in the rewritten version, which will be the theme song for Sanremo 2026, instead reads:
Italian, carefree, light-hearted
There’s Sanremo and I watch it from the sofa
Growing up in Salento, «in a context where music has always been a refuge and expression of identity», Welo approached rap and urban sounds at a very young age, founding the collective 23.7 in 2017. In 2022 he decided to embark on a solo path with the release of “Pass”, opening a new artistic phase. From “Malessere” to “4088”, passing through “Giramento”, his songs – some of which were collected in 2024 in the EP “Welo We 23” – are a mixture of sharp lyrics, popular irony and strong territorial roots.
Guè in 2024 was the first big name in the rap scene to support him, in one way or another, agreeing to record the single “My boo” with him: «I’m a big dog, you know that I lick / I want you, come down to me in Lecce / Ahahahahah, I laugh when / You think I’m yours, but it’s just your journey / The iron is hot and we don’t touch it / Come with me to the area, which is a romantic place.”
Last year, after being chosen as the jingle of the Sanremo Festival and having won the San Marino Song Contest, the event with which the Republic of San Marino chooses its representative at the Eurovision, “Tutta l’Italia” by Gabry Ponte competed in the Eurovision Song Contest, finishing in last place. Who knows if Welo’s “Emigrato (Italiano)” will also have access to the San Marino contest for Eurovision, just like Gabry Ponte’s song.
