equality factor: powerful advocate of equality rights
last album: Attese Vol I
our favorite song: L'ultima Sigaretta
music heroins: Mina Mazzini
based in: Lecce, Italy
Like Argentina, since always and even before I knew the country, I felt a very special connection with Italy. Most Argentine families come from a generation of Italian grandparents, great-grandparents, and ancestors who emigrated to Latin America after the Second World War. That's why the nostalgia that the accent, the customs, the food (fundamental), and many other characteristics that this country has generated in me an endless number of things beautiful. The music, ranks high, even today with artists like Lucia Manca.
Born in Lecce, one of the most beautiful cities in southern Italy, the singer Lucia Manca is an artist who is characterized not only by her beautiful postmodern voice, she is a beautifully nostalgic soul, inspired by the cinema of the 60s and 70s, the great singers and the sea of her land. She recognizes that music has always been part of her life thanks to the passion her father transmitted to her. She was always sure that this was the path she had to follow, beyond the limits that could get in the way, she faced and took all kinds of risks, to dedicate her space and her training to music.
"Music is a form of great expressive freedom."
For Lucia music is a form of great expressive freedom, it is the most sincere passion unleashed by the greatest love. Her composition process is like a ship that disembarks in the best ports until it reaches its final destination. She usually starts by experimenting within the group of chords with which she feels inspired at that moment, something that is highlighted by the wide sound difference that each of her works has. Her album "Maledetto o Benedetto" (2018) is a clear "modern" example of Lucia's admiration for the musical culture and aesthetics of the 80s. The single Eroi (Heroes) is a perfect model of this, not only does the style of her video clip go back to the characteristic looks of the time, but the synthesizers as the main sound, complemented by the vocal strength and security that characterizes Lucia, refers to great Italian singers of the time like Anna Oxa.
The idea to release this format arises from an urgent communication.
Lucia works on her vocal melodies simultaneously with the composition of her songs. Within the studio, she has a female team made up of producers Matilde Davoli and Gigi Chord, who ensure that Lucia's work ends up as elegant as she is. Her recent EP, "Attese Vol.1" is a prototype of this. The EP released last March 12 has four tracks where you find a poetically experimental Lucia, which is the first episode of a work that will have a second volume, something like two parts of the same film. Lucia plays a fundamental card launching her work in this way, time in days like today, is the right recipe to enhance their work: "The idea of release this format arises from an urgent communication, I wanted to launch as soon as possible the songs I already had, so I thought to divide it into two parts to optimize time" says the singer Salentina.
The Italian singer composed her songs without knowing that the wait she refers to in different ways on this EP would literally become so real. Like most artists today, she had to cancel all the dates she had scheduled to perform her new material.
Throughout her career, Lucía has collaborated with artists such as the musician Populous, recording covers such as Yoko Ono's "Toyboat". The great interpreters of Italian music like Mina are part of the female factor that inspires her career. Currently, she has great admiration for the American artist Angel Olsen, an artist who in another language has many musical coincidences with her.
"The achievement of gender equality is a very important goal for me. "
In her lyrics, Lucia conveys powerful messages such as her support for the LGBTIQ+ community, recognizing that defending equal rights is a matter of civilization and that achieving gender equality is a very important goal for her. "There is still much to be done on the cultural level, we must take a courageous path, in politics, in institutions, in society, and in the private sector, in order to free ourselves from the socio-cultural schemes that have been imposed on us," she said.
As an artist, she believes that she and her colleagues have a responsibility to raise awareness about equality and the fight against discrimination: "It is something that concerns us all, if we want to achieve real change in this society still affected by excessive male chauvinism, we must be united," says this incredibly empowered woman.
Lucia claims that the tradition of great Italian singer-songwriters and soundtracks is still a great mark of the country on the international scene, however over time, Italian pop began to take stylistic directions that fit and assimilate to international "standards", something that is sometimes too derivative and tends to distort identity. In Italy, equality between men and women is a mirage even in the music industry. As a female artist, she tells us that even today, the space for them within live formats is small. As well as in many countries, unfortunately, the female quotas for women within festivals are notoriously inferior in comparison to their male projects. She even argues that in music women have to show more than they should, that they have to take ten steps ahead of a man to find their space.
Lucia Manca is not only one of the best female voices that Italian music has today, but she is also a woman with convictions, a woman who makes her work her passion, and transmits in the freedom of her words a message of hope, perseverance, and respect for her ideals.
