MALIKA-AYANE_03_LOOK-PROMO_EDITORIALE_2026
Malika Ayane returns to Sanremo with Nocturnal animals, a piece that surprises for its apparent lightness and karst depth, far from any programmatic nostalgia.
After years of writing, theater and record repositioning, the artist returns to the Ariston with a new awareness, choosing subtraction instead of emphasis, teamwork instead of exhibited authorship.
“nocturnal animals” was written by Malika herself together with Edwyn Roberts and Stefano Marletta, who also composed the song together with Giordano Cremona, Federico Mercuri and Luca Faraone. The production, however, is signed by ITACA and FARAONE.
In this conversation he talks about night as a plural space, of amazement as a creative engine, of freedom from the need for validation and of a Festival to be experienced rather than commented on.
A centered, curious Malika, finally at ease in not having to prove anything.
THE INTERVIEW
After a long theatrical work, why return to Sanremo? And why now, with “Nocturnal Animals”?
Theater has never been an alternative to music, if anything an integration. With Ferdinando Salzano (Friends & Partners; ed.) we were planning new musical paths just before Covid, then we know how it went.
The theatre, in years of great uncertainty, was a place of incubation of ideas.
Sanremo has always remained on the wish list. It is an event that has given me a lot from the beginning, a context in which I feel at home: the orchestra, the working environment, the right energy.
But it's also a ferocious place if you're not centered. We were waiting for the right moment, the one when I was really ready.
The song arrived like this. An already advanced draft, a sound world that sucked me in. The text by Edwyn Roberts and Stefano Marletta, with whom I had already worked, had an evident strength.
I joined a job that was already underway, with a solid team. In this case I feel like a cog in something beautiful, the frontwoman of a collective work that really works.
You spoke of amazement. Is it a key word in this return?
Absolutely yes. Every listen excites me, which rarely happens to me with my songs. I'm usually very ferocious with myself, but here every time I discover a new detail, a guitar, a joint.
I can't wait for everyone to have the song. Music works best when you listen to it, not when you talk about it too much.
It also seems like a song that closes a circle, bringing you back to an initial lightness. Do you recognize yourself in this reading?
Sanremo has always been a fundamental step for me. Above all, I expect to have fun, which is an achievement, but also a memory.
The last Sanremo was the one without an audience, and so I always say that I did four and a half. Now I'll take that other vehicle.
That experience brought the value of things back into focus. Each step must be experienced, not feared.
The attitude is this: lightness, presence, enjoying the experience.
Who is the Malika of the new course? What can we expect from the next songs?
In the last three years I have written a lot, with friends, with people I met along the way. I've collected songs without yet knowing what album will come out. Probably in the autumn, after the tour.
Five years to make a record is a long time, so it has to be intense. I want it to be contemporary but full of everything that has happened over the years. The past is fundamental, but it is not enough.As they once told me, you make gravy with the past.
“Nocturnal animals” is a song that you feel is yours. In which passages do you recognize yourself the most?
I worked from the existing text, rather than rewriting it from scratch. I treated it like a dress to be finished. The trend I have chosen is that of recognizing oneself, of finding oneself, with oneself or with someone else.
The idea of dawn experienced as something always new, but with a presence that remains, is very much mine. And then there's the pleasure of not being at the center, which is an extraordinary feeling.
How much of a nocturnal animal are you really?
I experience the night in a new way: concerts at dawn, planes taken without mercy. While preparing for the New York Marathon I happened to finish running at dawn and then go into a club. It was almost mystical.
If I had to choose an animal, I would say my cat Marmitta: elegant when she sleeps, annoying for no reason when she decides. It represents me enough.
Has there been a reflection on the younger audience, on social media, on TikTok?
There is no strategy of conquest. Young people are smarter than us, don't fool them. Musically I don't see an anomaly: I have always alternated apparent lightness and depth.
I have TikTok, but I don't manage it. If you want to make things go badly, give me a social network.
In the song someone has caught an echo of Ornella Vanoni from the Seventies. Is this a conscious reference?
Partly yes, but involuntary. Ornella was a guide, as well as a friend. An often underestimated artist.
I have always been struck by his ability to adapt to the times without distorting himself, to work as a team. This too, for me, is lightness.
THE FORMATS
From February 27th the exclusive 45 rpm version will also be available, which will contain the Sanremo song (side A) and the unreleased version “(we are all) night animals” (side B) created together with Dov'è Liana, the talented French trio that mixes French touch, Italian and electronic influences.
THE TOUR
Malika Ayane will also return live in November with a tour of the main Italian theatres.
Tickets for the theater tour will be available from 6pm today, Monday 9 February
1 November – Fermo (Teatro dell'Aquila) DATE ZERO
3 November – Rome (Conciliazione Auditorium)
4 November – Florence (Teatro Verdi)
10 November – Milan (Arcimboldi Theatre)
11 November – Turin (Colosseum Theatre)
16 November – Bitritto, Bari (Palatour)
17 November – Naples (Teatro Augusteo)
19 November – Catania (Metropolitan Theatre)
20 November – Palermo (Golden Theatre)
24 November – Padua (Gran Teatro Geox)
25 November – Bologna (Duse Theatre)
27 November – Senigallia, Ancona (La Fenice Theatre)
28 November – Pescara (Teatro Massimo)
CLICK TO BUY TICKETS
WEB & SOCIAL
IG | X | TikTok
malikaayane.com
