Malika Ayane

Malika Ayane, an Italian singer whose soul-pop approach features a strikingly intimate vocal delivery, stands among the leading young women to emerge in the domestic music industry over the past decade. She entered the world on January 31, 1984, in Milan, where her Italian mother and Moroccan father raised her. Cello training at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory followed, and during the 1990s she also sang in the Scala Theater choir.

After linking with producer Ferdinando Arnò in the ensuing period, she supplied vocals for multiple television advertisements, an activity that attracted the interest of former performer Caterina Caselli. Caselli’s intervention secured Ayane a contract with the Sugar Music label, resulting in the 2008 self-titled debut album Malika Ayane. Its singles included “Sospesa” and “Feeling Better,” the second of which reached number six on the Italian charts.

A re-release the next year added the track “Come Foglie,” written by Negramaro’s Giuliano Sangiorgi and first presented by Ayane at the Sanremo Music Festival. She subsequently supplied the song “Dopo di Me” to Valerio Scanu and joined the charity recording “Domani 21/04.09” for Abruzzo earthquake survivors. In February 2010 she revisited the Sanremo Music Festival with “Ricomincio da Qui,” securing the Critics’ Award even though the entry finished outside the top three, prompting the house orchestra to roll up their scores and fling them onstage.

The song later appeared on her second album, Grovigli, which also contained a duet with Paolo Conte on “Little Brown Bear” and a cover of Nicola Di Bari’s “La Prima Cosa Bella,” drawn from the soundtrack of the Paolo Virzì film of the same name.