Ginevra Lubrano, sweetly complicated

This article is published in number 8 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 23, 2021

Geneva Lubrano (musically only Ginevra) is a rare example for Italian music. Delicate image, articulated texts, innovative formula. She is a songwriter with a taste for electronics, at 28 he manages to play contemporary and retro at the same time, and it’s not for everyone. He started singing in English, then he discovered the pleasure of the Italian language, his Ep Metropolis was released in May by that talent nursery that is the label Asian Fake. She participated in AmaSanremo (the semifinals of Sanremo Giovani), she did not win but she got noticed. The last two collaborations are with Mecca (Soli, together with Ghemon) and she has written that jewel that is Inspiration of Inoki (with Noemi). Now it is still “a little bird,” as it is called, but the wings seem strong and ready.

How does music come into your life?
«With my father who plays Battisti and Fossati on guitar at home and with dance, classical since I was four, then hip hop. The sense of rhythm comes from there. I put my beloved songwriters into it: the spark was Adele, when 19 came out, acoustic, raw, intimate, direct, personal. From there I pulled the thread and went all the way to Joni Mitchell. Then one day I listened to The xx by chance in Piazza San Carlo in Turin, with their reverbs, the trip hop drums. My hybrid was born there ».

Dance gives discipline.
“There is in everything I did, even the classical high school, the university, I think it comes from my father. I am iron by nature, like him ».

Is she one who gives herself so many rules?
“I tend to be too precise, it’s a double-edged sword when you do an artistic work, which pushes you to explore the absence of limits. Music was my escape from preconceptions, from a rigid nature, from Turin ».

What was it like being an emerging artist in the year of Covid?
“In its own profitable way. I have giant ambitions, but I take what comes my way. It was less traumatic than for big artists, who canceled tours of the halls and stopped entire crews. And I released singles that looked perfect for the time we were living. I need to play, because I’m in the real mess. I am a little bird that has just arrived, even if I have already written a lot and have started writing for others too ».

Your imagery is very linked to the city, how was it to see it go out?
«It made me reflect on the care our time needs, it made me visualize a world of possibilities. I painted random things that cannot be shown to the world. Me, the acrylics and the music that plays. And I read, without stopping ».

What was your book during the pandemic?
«Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. I had read it as a young girl, without understanding it, with skepticism. I found today’s Geneva there. I’m tied to Eastern philosophies, I’m in a yoga and meditation bubble, it was a good catastrophe read. It reminded me that balance is a methodical exercise. Meditating every day doesn’t make you a little Buddha, but it helps a lot ».

Is it difficult to balance in a world like yours?
«I suffer from the dynamics of discography, marketing does not make me feel good, with its continuous attempt to transform everyone into icons. I am articulated inside, but aesthetically simple. I can’t stand an irreverent image, I don’t like the concept of filter, on Instagram I put my thoughts in the form of haiku. Sometimes they tell me: you’re too basic, but that’s okay with me ».

—-

Born in 1993, Turin, in September 2020 Ginevra Lubrano debuts on the stage of the Verona Arena with his friend Ghemon.

Photo TOMMASO OTTOMANO

To subscribe to Vanity Fair, click here.