From the province of Campania to the spotlight of the Sanremo festival.
With a load of pain, suffering, and then revenge and affirmation that transformed the insecure Marianna (Mammone) into the brazen BigMama, the 23-year-old rapper, flag of body positivity.
"When I started singing BigMama was my shield, she was everything that Marianna wasn't, that I couldn't be. Today BigMama wins."
With the song La Rabbia non ti Basta, which bears her signature, she convinced Amadeus to call her among the Big names competing this year (last year she was Elodie's guest on the duets evening).
A hard, direct piece which, alternating the strength of rap with the freedom of dance, points the finger at bullying and violence (verbal and psychological), which she herself has suffered and continues to suffer on her own skin.
"I owed it to my child, who was afraid to walk down the street. I would have liked to have someone to help me, between a 'distracted' family and teachers who made fun of me. I would have done everything in the past to protect myself: in the text I speak to I opened my heart to myself and it was soothing. It's a closing circle."
Her body does not meet the canonical beauty criteria, she calls it "fatphobia", "and this made me feel wrong, there has never been a representation of a body like mine, except as a clown. This made yes that I developed a certain irony, but it also created a wrong image of me", says the rapper who wants to be "the voice of those who have no voice", to "lend a hand to those who suffer".
He's not afraid of words, BigMama.
And he is not afraid to assert his positions against external attacks.
"They often accuse me of proclaiming that fat is beautiful, but I say that fat is normal. Like being short, tall, queer. The message I bring forward is that I, an X girl with a fat body, can do the same things that girl Y with a skinny body does."
Among the accusations that annoy her the most is that of "being successful because I serve, because I am a machine of capitalism and my image is associated with fast food. Nothing could be further from me: I eat the stuff I cook myself and at fast food if I go there once a month it's a lot. Instead, ask yourself why if there are 100, 200 fat singers, only one is on stage. The answer is because I'm good and I deserve to be where I am."
He does not deny that every message, however, digs deep furrows.
"With Sanremo I already know that tons of insults and insults will arrive, but we forget that there is a person who has eyes to read and to cry. Are there 100 messages of compliments? I only read the one negative one. The cutting comments They are painful."
Because her biggest flaw, she admits, "is giving too much weight to what others think and say".
In Sanremo, he assures, he doesn't go for the race.
"I participate in that of those who want to bring a message", explains BigMama who also draws strength from his personal story.
"Three years ago, I was 20, I had cancer, lymphoma. I had 12 cycles of chemotherapy, I wore a wig and sang without anyone noticing anything. It was hard, but today I'm on the Ariston stage. I've overcome more serious things than bullying, I haven't let myself down and this gives me great energy."
In Sanremo he will meet Giovanni Allevi who is fighting myeloma: "I'm happy that he's there too. We are the representation of the while and the after".
Reluctant to definitions, the description she gives of herself is "artist, queer, fat. And first of all a woman. But they are all social labels, I think I am a girl who makes music and who talks about what she has experienced to make understand that there is a glimmer of life and hope."
Meanwhile, in just over a week we have to face the Ariston, "I want to be at the height of that stage: the objective is to go up, smash and go down. Anxiety? Of course, it's part of the festival package".
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA