San Marino – Gabry Ponte – Tutta L’Italia

The tiny republic of San Marino, with its population of fewer than 35,000 people, remains staunchly independent from Italy, the much larger country of about 58 million people that wholly surrounds it. So if this is the case, why is San Marino’s Eurovision entry this year titled Tutta L’Italia (All of Italy)?

Let’s start in February 2025, when the world got its first taste of DJ Gabry Ponte’s Tutta L’Italia during the Sanremo song contest. It wasn’t actually an entry, but the earworm-y refrain “Tutta L’Italia tutta l’Italia tutta l’Italia” was the lead-in music for the ad breaks. Every single ad break. For a festival that runs for five nights, up to five hours a night. By the end of Sanremo, I was hearing Tutta L’Italia in my sleep.

And even though the song wasn’t an official entry, Sanremo host and creative director Carlo Conti invited Gabry Ponte to perform it on the final night of the Festival:

On the surface level, in this context, the presentation of the song makes sense. Conti is programming the annual festival of Italian music – something that is a uniting event for all of Italy. Why not have a song that celebrates the nation coming together over music?

But there’s some background context to this which I think colours my enjoyment and appreciation of the song. 2025 was not just the year that Sanremo creative director Carlo Conti chose Tutta L’Italia as the ad break music, but the first year Conti was programming the festival after a long stretch of it being helmed by Amedeo ‘Amadeus’ Sebastiani, known to Eurofans as Amadeus.

In 2024, during Sebastiani’s final year as creative director, he included two songs – Onde Alta by Dargen d’Amico and Casa Mia by Ghali – that were explicitly political. d’Amico’s song was written from the perspective of refugees coming to Italy. In addition to his performances, the rapper brought an educational newsstand to Sanremo that held daily events about immigration from NGOs working on the issue. Ghali’s song used the thinly disguised character of alien Rich Cioliono to present a pro-immigration song, and both Ghali and Rich used their time on stage to call for an end to the genocide in Gaza. When d’Amico and Ghali appeared on the traditional post-Sanremo celebration on Domenica In, the incredibly popular Italian talk show hosted by Mara Venier, who was heard off-camera asking other guests to stop asking the artists political questions so she wouldn’t get in trouble.

This incident was viewed by many as an example of the pressures placed upon the Italian broadcaster RAI by the right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni. In fact, RAI journalists went on strike in 2024 after an appearance by the author and Mussolini biographer Antonio Scurati was suddenly cancelled without good reason. Meloni’s perceived interference with RAI is just one way her government is expanding its reach into Italian culture and media.

The Sanremo Festival under Conti was designed to avoid these pitfalls. In a November 2024 interview, Conti noted that the upcoming festival would not feature songs about war or immigration. And many of the works featured were more introspective, looking at family drama, love, or personal identity.

While Conti didn’t choose Ponte’s song for the festival itself, its prominence at Sanremo resulted in the organisers of the incredibly convoluted San Marino Song Contest giving Ponte a direct pass to their final, which he won. And I don’t want to knock the show that San Marino puts on – again, fewer than 35,000 people – but one of the songs Ponte was competing against was a piano instrumental that would have been ineligible for Eurovision. But also, Ponte’s song is a complete banger! The man knows how to craft a pop hook, and not a week has gone by since Sanremo that I haven’t made up some excuse to yell ‘Tutta L’Italia’ at someone.

All of that is a very long-winded prelude to get to the question that I really want to ask: In the year 2025, in an Italy ruled by Giorgia Meloni, where there is increasing government interference in culture, who exactly is the ‘tutta’ in ‘Tutta L’Italia’?

Let me first acknowledge that I don’t think Ponte and his co-writers Andrea Bonomo and Edwyn Roberts (who are also the vocalists on the song) have any ulterior political motives. I think they’re trying to write a song that’s fun for the dance floor. I mean, Ponte is a former member of Eiffel 65 and is responsible for the 90’s smash hit Blue (Da Ba Dee). But I noticed something interesting when I watched the official music video for the song:

Every single person in this video appears to be white. And yes, I know that the vast majority of people who live in Italy – 91 percent – are of Italian ancestry. But more than 5 million people who live in Italy came there from a non-EU country. Italy is a major landing point in Europe for asylum seekers, who are often stuck in the country awaiting processing before being able to move on. And Italy is a country where the children of immigrants born on Italian soil do not qualify for automatic citizenship – they must apply for it when they turn 18. We know that Italy is not an all-white country; we saw representation from artists of colour like Elodie and Joshua at Sanremo 2025. So it seems like a conscious choice to depict a swath of generations – from the stereotypical Nonnas cooking up some red gravy to the tiniest of babies – as ethnically Italian, rather than reflecting ‘tutta l’Italia’ with the population that actually lives in Italy today.

The lyrics here also tend to reflect a specific type of Italian experience – one that isn’t necessarily shared by everyone. Within the first verse of the song, the vocalists sing “Spaghetti, wine, and Our Father“, a line accompanied by Ponte making the Catholic symbol of the Sign of the Cross. Many of the immigrants to Italy from North Africa – immigrants like Ghali’s parents – are Muslim, but Prime Minister Meloni has suggested that Italy should be able to prioritize receiving immigrants that match the country’s Christian heritage. Her stated preference for Christianity comes despite the fact that Italy has not had Roman Catholicism as its state religion since 1984, under an agreement signed by the Vatican and Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi (also referenced in the song.)

I don’t doubt that Ponte and his co-writers wanted to create something that reflected their understanding of Italy – one where sons live with mothers into adulthood, one where football is a religion, and where home cooking remains delicious as leftovers the day after. It’s an Italy where a night of carousing and drinking can be shrugged off because everyone participating is really, at heart, a good guy.

For Ponte, I’m sure that’s true. But the problem is that the song isn’t called ‘Ponte’s Italia.’ It’s called ‘Tutta l’Italia.’ He’s claiming a universal experience on behalf of his country that leaves out large chunks of it. Again, I don’t think he’s doing this on purpose, but what we then get in this video are a bunch of images that reinforce the messages of Meloni’s right wing government – pro-Christian, pro-natalist, anti-immigrant – with a rousing message about ‘all of Italy.’

In Ponte’s hands at Eurovision, this song is a fun dance track. I’m going to enjoy screaming along to the chorus in Basel. But post-Eurovision, how will it be used? It’s not hard to imagine an election campaign where Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia uses Tutta l’Italia at campaign rallies.

Is that Ponte’s problem? At the moment, no – he should be focused on Eurovision. But after the competition? Maybe. It’s true that artists have very little control of how their art is used once it is released. Take a look at the way the gentle character of Pepe the Frog, created by Matt Furie, was co-opted into use as a white supremacist symbol without the artist’s consent.

Look. I’m not Gabry Ponte. He’s jetsetting around the world playing DJ sets in front of adoring crowds. But if I were him, and I were thinking about addressing criticisms while also making more money, I’d potentially be looking at doing a Tutta l’Italia remix album with some guest vocals from major Italian artists – maybe Artie 5ive, the rapper currently burning up the Italian charts – and thus get another bite at radio play and streaming opportunities. Signalling that the Italia in my song was one that truly did try to reflect everyone in Italy, rather than just an idealized and non-existent version of the country, would just be a pleasant secondary benefit.