In Italy we have a problem with female rappers: there are few of them in thirty years of local hip-hop. Those that have left their mark are even fewer, they don't last long and too often leave a faint trace. Something, perhaps, is changing and it is natural that a future of female rhymers is all the more likely if new, credible and young names manage to establish themselves.
It happened with Madame, who maintained her ambition to be different in a standardized and lazy scene. It went worse with many others, consumed early by the success of the first singles.
Ele A, stage name of Eleonora Antognini born in 2002, is a Swiss rapper with Italian citizenship, and is the name that many have been focusing on in recent months. Daughter of musicians, with some experience on the cello, she becomes passionate about hip-hop and publishes freestyle on Instagram. Bake a demomakes the first ones live. At the end of 2022 he independently released his first official single, “Mikado”, which anticipates the release of his first EP, “Globo” (2023): beat classics and nocturnes, flow precise and sure, a clear pronunciation and lyrics that can be drinkable even for those who listened to Italian rap before the third millennium.
Far from trap and its slang, it quotes Nas and Biggie. Incredible but true: sex, drugs, violence and brands are not the center of attention. It also avoids nostalgic re-enactment, that vintage from “I was born in the wrong era”, because Ele A may not be trendy but remains contemporary and, if necessary, edits his rap on the liquid funkthat is, an atmospheric and melodic drum'n'bass, by “Uno9999”.
He signed for Universal and released the EP “Acqua” (2024), where he confirmed his potential with classic and contemporary songs like “KO” but (honestly) it wasn't surprising, also because it approaches trap (“Oblò”) and pop.
After having made his name known also thanks to a series of featuring tactics, releases this “Pixel”, perhaps the most awaited debut album of the year for the Italian scene.
The sound from the beginning of the millennium is the propellant of “Tiwait”, a presentation for the transversal audience to which this album is aimed:
I don't know how to be on IG, I don't know how to make a post
I grew up with Biggie, I don't know how to make pop
I don't wear shorts, I walk among vipers
Culture shock when I leave the Swiss Alps
The style inspired by the classics, with beat who use the warm sounds of the last century, is well represented in “Buon example” (feat. Promessa & Sayf) while “091” even goes back to the electro-rap of the Eighties. In “Mai” he moves in a contemporary jazz-rap which with Gaia obtains r'n'b nuances. In the bilingual “Cielo grigio”, with the French rapper NeS, he finds the precious balance between past and present, combining vintage and contemporary.
Elsewhere he instead indulges in the digital, mechanical and electronic sounds in vogue in the last two decades. In “Quintale” he still retains his personality, practicing an oppressive trap that alternates various approaches to the microphone. With “Windy Days” he throws the most credible pop-trap punch, on a sample of dreamy folk and a fragile emotionality that recalls Pop
The new attempts, however, are disappointing liquid funk of “X te”, practically an imitation of Madame good for the Fimi charts, and “Pixel”, with the autopilot of melancholy.
To be successful in 2025, one might unfortunately say, you also need the right names to include in the tracklist. Come on beat by Night Skinny first offers “DDL”, little more than a freestyle trap, and then the more relaxed and atmospheric “Con le mie G” (feat. Guè), also forgettable. It's just another case where you host and the collaborations turn out to be of little relevance. Much more curious to find Colapesce in “Ombre di città”, who with his melancholic singing almost steals the song.
Ele A closes this long-awaited debut album with “Atlantide”, piano and filtered voice: it sounds like Blanco, and transmits that desperate emotionality of post-adolescence that borders on the tearful.
It is not clear if we have a name to add to the short list of Italian rappers that we will remember even in a few years. Despite the three years since the first EP and an unusually long gestation for the dynamics of the current market, “Pixel” seems too divided between the need to assert its own recognizable style and that of capitalizing on the public's attention with guest appearances and potential singles. She will certainly find more consensus than other colleagues less interested in the hip-hop of the Eighties and Nineties, because the use of remnants of sound classic is a road less traveled and more appreciated by people millennials.
25/10/2025
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
