While enrolled at a neighborhood conservatory, Italian pop singer-songwriter Tiziano Ferro honed his craft by studying guitar and piano and sharpening his voice. At sixteen he entered a gospel ensemble, where his affinity for Afro-American sounds first took hold. By 1998 he had begun collaborating with producers Alberto Salerno and Mara Maionchi on his earliest compositions. EMI Italy issued his debut album, Rosso Relativo, three years later; it contained the hit single Xdono and established his reputation. Stardom arrived with the 2003 follow-up, 111—titled after the pounds he gained during a teenage struggle with bulimia—which ultimately surpassed a million copies sold. Although reviewers dismissed it as synthetic pop, Ferro built a thriving career both as a recording artist, collecting multiple platinum certifications and numerous awards, and as a writer for other performers such as Michael Bolton and Blue.
He cut tracks in Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and English, most prominently the single Universal Prayer, a duet with British R&B star Jamelia that served as the official anthem for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. A series of ill-considered remarks about Latin America on a television program in 2006 effectively ended his momentum there, yet the same controversy left his standing in Italy untouched; his subsequent releases, Nessuno è Solo (2006), Alla Mia Età (2008), and L’Amore È una Cosa Semplice (2011), each reached number one domestically. After years of silence, he publicly identified as gay in a 2010 Vanity Fair interview. In 2013 he produced the debut solo album by Italian rapper Baby K and contributed production work for Giusy Ferreri and Alessandra Amoroso. Late 2014 and early 2015 saw his greatest-hits collection TZN: The Best of Tiziano Ferro hold the top chart position for several weeks. Powered by fresh singles and a stadium tour, the set maintained strong sales through 2016.
