Lorenzo Jovanotti at Sanremo Festival 2025

On this occasion we republish the interview made with the famous singer for Florence Made in Tuscany 46

Lorenzo Jovanotti will be the great host of the opening night of the Sanremo Festival 2025. For the occasion, we republish the interview we did with the singer for Florence Made in Tuscany 46 in spring 2018.

A fortuitous mistake. Made by the printer who, when printing the presentation poster for a night at the disco, instead of Joe Vanotti - Lorenzo Cherubini’s chosen artistic name - wrote Jovanotti. A year passed – it was 1987, and our twenty-year-old Lorenzo skillfully juggled between Deejay Television and Radio Deejay, a presenter for one, and a disc jockey for the other. Soon Claudio Cecchetto was producing his first album, Jovanotti For President.

“Thirty years ago,” says Lorenzo, “on New Year’s Eve of 1987, for the first time I began to ask, yelling like a madman into the microphone above the records, ‘Is this where the party is?’ and in the funk tradition the people on the dance floor answered ‘Yes!’ That slogan also became a single, made in one afternoon, which went on to become number one even if it wasn’t a masterpiece of composition, but the title was enough, the slogan was effective and worked, becoming an unexpected saying.” The rest is history. A history of motorbikes and safaris, of a lucky boy who has become a symbol of a pop culture, as explosive as a big bang, whose energy has covered grandparents, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters with happy music. Lorenzo Cherubini was born in Rome in 1966. The capital was his great cultural mother, but his ties with Tuscany are almost ancestral. He spent his summers in Cortona, right from childhood, forging experiences far from the city that also played a major role in his career. In that village enclosed by Arezzo’s greenery are Jovanotti’s epicenters, made up of popular faces and genuine places, like Enrico’s bar, the Fortezza del Girifalco ramparts, the family home hidden between ancient Etruscan walls.

Jovanotti (ph. Giovanni Ghidini)

And then along comes Florence. In an atmosphere of intact wonder, almost like a film by Guadagnino, villa Le Rose in Impruneta, south of Florence, was, for all of August 2017, the ideal studio in which to record Oh Vita!, an album with 14 tracks, selected and produced by none other than Rick Rubin. Take a look on Google. It doesn’t take much to understand how Rubin can be a guiding star of music. With his Californian DNA, he has produced Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers and now also our Jova. To celebrate this explosion of life in music, Jovanotti left for Milan, passing through Florence, Rome and then Europe, for the sensational Lorenzo Live Tour 2018. After 30 years of career, 13 original albums, after dozens of sold out stadiums and venues, Lorenzo seems tireless and has invented a spectacular show, in the true sense of the word.

The show opens with 13 large chandeliers that transform the space into a real party room. “In the living room of the house where we recorded the album, right here on the outskirts of Florence, there was a large crystal chandelier, and while I was singing I had it over my head, so I thought it was a sign and somehow I wanted to take it on tour.

These chandeliers dominate the public, warm them up, welcome them, excite them and during the concert they are transformed from classic objects into disco machines, spaceships, ufo’s, laser beams, flying saucer discs, city lamp posts.” On stage with Lorenzo is his inseparable band, the musical soulmate that has accompanied him through every chapter of his career. “The heart of everything is that,” says Jova, “I’ve never had a band in such a state of grace like this time, with a new wind section and my musicians, collaborators since the beginning, more focused than ever. I ask a lot of them because in this concert the atmospheres change constantly and for a musician, it’s a question of always pushing to the maximum and always in a different way. The backbone of the show is music, a non-stop journey through hip hop, dancehall, disco and rock’n’roll.” Between one dance and another, led by the usual groove that distinguishes him, Lorenzo turns into a true stage animal in his look as well, with unique and contemporary garments. Magic Jova, the greatest show after the big bang is undoubtedly yours.