Starring GHALI
Photography CASPER KOFI
Styling JULIAN GANIO
Ghali believes all artists should take a stand
By VALERIA DELLA VALLE
Gracing the cover of LOVE Issue 27, Ghali has transformed Italian rap and the national discourse around identity. He reflects on belonging, the power of music to start conversations, and the stories he wants to tell.
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IT’S EARLY IN THE MORNING, and we’re inside the Stanza delle Reliquie—the ‘Room of Relics’— one of the most iconic rooms at the Vittoriale degli Italiani, the extravagant estate overlooking Italy’s Lake Garda. Outside, the summer sun is already unforgiving. Inside, it barely penetrates thedarkness. The only source of light comes from the ‘relics’ themselves, their gleam animated by light fractured through stained glass. Everything feels suspended, almost sacred.
"This place is incredible,” says Ghali, interrupting the silence. Draped in an all-white Gucci look, he moves through the room, statuesque yet with the curiosity of a child, fascinated by everything around him. “I wish my house looked like this.” Every detail of the Vittoriale reflects the meticulous vision of poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, who spent the final years of his life here, transforming his home into a museum of himself—a total work of art devoted to beauty, memory, and the construction of a national identity. The Stanza delle Reliquie, in particular, was conceived as a room of symbols, where d’Annunzio gathered sacred objects and artefacts from an extraordinary range of religious and cultural traditions. Few people understand the power of symbols quite like Ghali—not least because he has become one himself.
“Artists can start conversations that people with real power often choose to avoid.”
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Born Ghali Amdouni to Tunisian parents based in Milan, the rapper has become one of the defining faces of a new Italy. Since breaking through with ‘Ninna Nanna’ (‘Lullaby’) in 2016, he has built one of the most remarkable careers in contemporary Italian rap, earning more than 60 platinum and 21 gold certifications, while forging collaborations with artists including Ed Sheeran, Stormzy, Soolking, and Mr Eazi. But his impact extends farbeyond music. Today, Ghali is one of Italy’s most influential cultural figures. Whenever he chooses to speak, he shapes the national conversation around immigration, equality, and belonging, whether politics welcomes it or not. This is done with grace rather than force: there is no trace of arrogance in the way he speaks, which is precisely why his words carry such weight.
Sitting on the iconic staircase at the 2024 Sanremo Music Festival—the most popular song contest and an institutionalstage in Italian pop music—he performed a medley with Tunisian rapper Ratchopper, blending Italian and Arabic. It felt quietly revolutionary. His interpretation of Toto Cutugno’s ‘L’Italiano’ was far more than a cover, it became a poetic statement: “Lasciatemi cantare, perché ne sono fiero / Sono un italiano, un italiano vero” (“Let me sing, for I’m proud of it / I’m an Italian, a true Italian”). The defining moment came with ‘Casa Mia’, Ghali’s entry for the competition: “Dal cielo è uguale, giuro” (“From the sky, it all looks the same. I swear”); a meditation on peace, human equality, and the arbitrariness of borders.
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“As much as I’d like to keep things simple,” he tells me, “I can’t help feeling responsible. Whenever I speak publicly about something, I create a conversation, and I think that’s healthy. We’re not out on the streets killing each other—we’re discussing something. Artists can do that better than almost anyone else. They can start conversations that people with real power often choose to avoid.”
Ghali’s willingness to speak out was yet more evident on that same Sanremo stage when, after performing on the final night, he simply said “Stop al genocidio” (“Stop the genocide”). Controversy erupted almost immediately. “What else was I supposed to use that stage for?” he asked the following day, on national television.
Being Ghali has never been easy. Last June, he publicly backed the citizenship referendum before finding himself at the centre of another controversy surrounding the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Invited to perform at the opening ceremony, he claims he was asked, at the last minute, to remove Arabic-language verses from his multilingual reading of Gianni Rodari’s anti-war poem ‘Promemoria’, and told he could no longer perform the Italian national anthem. On the eve of the event, in a post deliberately echoing Pier Paolo Pasolini’s famous 1974 article ‘Io so’ (‘I know’), he wrote: “I know why they invited me. I also know why I could no longer sing the Italian national anthem. I know why they proposed that I recite a poem about peace. I know it could have contained more than one language. I know that one language, Arabic, was deemed too much at the last minute.”
When the event was broadcast, many viewers noticed he was neither formally introduced nor directly shown on camera during his appearance, fuelling fresh questions. “I’ve spent my life observing,” he says. “As a kid, I listened to adults talking. I tried to absorb everything while I was still innocent, to understand where not to go. Now, I realise I’m simply trying to figure things out. We’re all here for the first time. I’m just trying to understand how life works. The difference is that I want to tell that journey through stories. That’s probably my greatest skill. I feel more like a storyteller than a rapper or a singer.”
To understand Ghali, you have to go back. Back to before the gold records, the sold-out arenas, the national conversations. Back to a boy growing up on the outskirts of Milan. To the father who ended up in prison while he was
very young, before disappearing from his life altogether. To the mother raising her son alone, turning small, everyday victories into an act of resilience. “Music literally changed my life,” he says. “It gave me a place in society. It gave my family and my friends something to be proud of. Without music, I honestly don’t know where I’d be. Everything I knew growing up was the street—how to make money there, the violence that came with it. Music became a lighthouse.”
In circumstances like Ghali’s, dreams often fade before they’re even spoken aloud. His mother saw his potential before anyone else. “She knew from the very beginning. There weren’t any examples like this at the time, which makes her belief even more extraordinary. She was brave.” And she was right. “When I was little and home alone, I’d sit for hours watching Michael
Jackson VHS tapes, hypnotised. I grew up listening to Pino Daniele, but also to Tunisian traditional music and iconic voices from the Arab world like Fairuz, Fatima Ibrahim, and Rachid Taha.
“Then my dad went to jail. He started copying CDs for me from inside, and I’d spend entire afternoons with a neighbour listening to Eminem, Linkin Park, and Limp Bizkit. That’s how I discovered rap, and for the first time I thought, 'I could do this too.'
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“When we got evicted, I started hanging out in a park next to the train station. That’s where I discovered Gemelli DiVersi, Joe Cassano, Inoki and the wave of Italian hip-hop that came to define the late 1990s and early 2000s.” Music opened up a world—and revealed what was missing. As Ghali recalls, the Italian hip-hop scene at the time was almost entirely white. Although hip-hop is rooted in giving a voice to the streets, in Italy it was far from democratic. Almost considered a hobby, hip-hop was largely reserved for those who could afford it. Across the Mediterranean, however, rap was often a language of survival—for which some artists risked their lives.
Still, Ghali kept writing. He was 11 when he started making music, never imagining it could become a career one day. He wasn’t looking for a way out, he was looking for a way to give shape to everything that, until then, had remained in suspended animation. Perhaps that’s why, when Ghali sings, it feels both deeply personal and seems to speak to an entire generation.
Through Sto Records, his independent label platforming emerging artists from diverse backgrounds, he now supports that generation. “There are kids who are unbelievably talented, but they don’t yet realise how far they can go. They’re already doing everything on their own. I’m just there to reassure them that it’s possible.” Even at his most disillusioned, he remains remarkably hopeful about those coming after him. “Young people already see through so many things. They don’t buy into every lie. They’ve already dismantled so many narratives. By the time they’re 20, many of them already know what’s real and what’s fake. That gives me hope.”
As he gently browses the Vittoriale’s precious library, Ghali seems remarkably at ease, as though the room speaks a language he understands. In him, the human and the artist don’t exist separately. Music is the language through which the self becomes visible—a continuous exchange between personal and collective experience. In this sense, he embodies a dandyism of his own: one that transforms not only appearance, but turns a way of inhabiting the world into an artistic practice.
This philosophy materialises in Gran Teatro (Grand Theatre), his most ambitious live show to date. Premiering in Milan in 2025, the production marked the beginning of a new artistic chapter. Gran Teatro, which brings together 50 performers, moves beyond the traditional concert format to become something closer to a shared ritual—an introspective collective journey through identity, spirituality, and the contradictions of the contemporary world. “I see my whole life as a performance,” Ghali says. “It goes far beyond the music. I see it as one continuous piece that will keep unfolding in episodes for as long as I live. Gran Teatro is also everything happening around me. In a way, it’s the matrix we’re all living in. Many of the artists in today’s music scene are part of it. To me, what happened at the Olympics is part of Gran Teatro too.”
Music, in his view, cannot detach itself from the issues shaping the world. “I don’t believe art and politics can be divided. Especially now, when artists have a direct relationship with their audience. It’s strange to see some of the biggest names in rap staying silent about issues that really matter. It’s not even about taking sides, it’s about showing that you’re not pretending nothing is happening,” he says, with a look that suggests he genuinely cannot comprehend that anyone would choose to live like that.
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It would be easier for him to stay away from these conversations—far easier than most people probably realise. “Sometimes I wonder whether people should even know,” he admits. “I want to keep showing that I’m living a normal life, even after speaking out, even after taking certain positions. Whatever the consequences have been for me, none of them are more serious than what’s happening in the world.”
Despite controversy and censorship, Ghali loves the country of his birth deeply. “You’re my second mother. Every son makes mistakes / You dream of America, I dream of Italy—a new Italy,” he sings in ‘Bayna’ (Arabic for “It’s clear”). “I wouldn’t trade my Italian identity for an international career,” he tells me. “I’d rather be recognised abroad as an Italian artist. I often meet international creatives who tell me I should record songs in English, but what matters to me is doing something meaningful here. Maybe, in some ways, I do feel constrained—but it’s a beautiful kind of constraint. This is the country I love most. This is where I want to stay. These are the people I want to make music for. Italy has so much beauty that we rarely celebrate.”
His Tunisian roots remain, inseparable from his story, running quietly through his music, carried with tenderness. “It’s been years since I last went,” he says. “It’s probably connected to my relationship with my father. I don’t really know why—I should probably dig deeper—but I’ve always been a little afraid of going back. I’m even afraid of succeeding there! I know people have been waiting for me for years, I know I could sell out the Carthage Amphitheatre overnight, but I keep postponing it. There’s something that scares me and, at the same time, something that keeps calling me back.”
It’s a conundrum familiar to anyone who carries more than one home within themselves. “It’s a natural pull. It’s in my blood. That’s why I love Sicily so much—it’s the perfect meeting point between my two cultures. Arab, then Italian, then Arab again. From the Sicilian coast, you can see the lights of Tunisia. I imagine myself spending evenings there, writing while looking across the sea. I like the idea that, from there, I could smell my parents’ country. In the end, it’s all part of the same stretch of land.”
In a time defined by fragmentation, permanent outrage, and an almost compulsive search for conflict, Ghali imagines music as a place where differences can begin to dissolve. The end of 2026 will mark another chapter with the release of a new album—an extension of an artistic journey that has become tentacular. “I want to find new ways of saying what I think,” he explains. “There are countries that suffer far more than we do, yet people still find reasons to celebrate. That’s what this record is for me, a celebration, an album that brings people back together, regardless of their faith, where they come from, their religion or their identity.”
On his new record, Ghali doesn’t change in essence, rather opening up new perspectives, embracing new worlds. Musically, the project follows the same principle that has always shaped his work: seeing the blending of cultures not as a loss, but as a new possibility.
“Some tracks draw from Mexican music, others from North African sounds. Some are unmistakably Italian—especially southern Italian. I’ve always believed there’s something powerful about mixing cultures. That’s where new ideas come from. New sounds. At the same time, I also want to celebrate Italian culture—to play with the incredible artistic references we have, the ones we too often overlook.”
Before we leave the Stanza delle Reliquie, Ghali stands in silence for a few moments, his gaze moving slowly from one object to another, as if trying to decipher their meaning. D’Annunzio built the Vittoriale as a universe of symbols. Ghali, in his own music, is doing the same. Only without walls. Without rooms. His music travels. It lives in the questions it poses and the boundaries it continues to challenge. ♥
Makeup MANUELA BALDUCCI at WALTER SCHUPFER MANAGEMENT using AUGUSTINUS BADER
Photography assistant MICAELA ISABEL BIAGIN
Digital operator JACOB CHRISTOPHER PEATFIELD
Styling assistant YLENIA FESTA
Production CINQ ÉTOILES PRODUCTIONS
Post-production INK
THIS STORY IS TAKEN FROM LOVE A/W 27 ISSUE, AVAILABLE TO ORDER AT KD PRESSE.