Growing up with the music of One Direction, Big Mama approaches the world of rap quite early. A love born when at the age of 13: “I went with one of my brothers to a concert of Salmo, Clementino and Ensi and there I fell madly in love with Salmo, to the point that for a while I only heard him, I know his discography memory. Until I realized her music made me feel good, but her lyrics didn’t speak to what I needed…”
“They say I’m too much, when you talk, you talk too much, when you laugh, you laugh too much, when you eat, you eat too much”, these are some words of the new single Too muchsigned Big Moms. Born in 2000 and born in Avellino, Marianna Mammone (alias Big Mama) is ready to take the stage of San Remo this evening together with Eloid. On the occasion of the evening dedicated to covers, Elodie has in fact decided to have the new promise of theurban Italian, as well as an icon of body positivity. They will sing American WomanOf Lenny Kravitz. But who is Big Mama?
Big Mama, let it be known, Marianna, “He’s been my alter ego since I was 14, a mispronunciation of my surname”. Not only. The choice fell on this stage name also because, in English, it has the meaning of “female founder or leading exponent of a company, organization, movement”.
young Italian rapper, Marianna approaches the world of music as a child when she participated in karaoke competitions in her country, winning some cups. “I still remember that at the age of 7 I used to take my mother’s phone and make videos with songs I invented, sort of freestyles for my younger brother, he was one year old at the time and I enjoyed making him dance. Basically music has always been in my life and I’ve always written, even if up to a certain point without a real goal.
Grew up with the music of one direction, Big Mama approaches the world of rap quite early. A love born when at 13: “I went with one of my brothers to a concert by Psalm, Clementine and Ensi and there I fell in love with Salmo, to the point that for a while I only heard him, I know his discography by heart. Until I realized that his music made me feel good, but his lyrics didn’t talk about what I needed. In Italy there is still no one who takes a stand for my type of minority, if we want to call it that, that is, for all those people who, like me, feel wrong because they are fat, even if in my case it’s not just that. So I started doing it”. In particular, Marianna remembers that moment when she said: that’s enough, I want to write to let the world know what I feel and to help all the people who live in the same situation as me.
“It happened after a difficult day, I was 13, I had gone out with a friend and kids were throwing rocks at me yelling ‘fat you suck’ and stuff like that. I returned home destroyed, but I didn’t say anything to my parents because I was ashamed. They are discovering them now, these facts, I was convinced at the time that it was me who was wrong. But that day, after a good cry, I took a sad base on the Internet and jotted down a piece, Charlotte, which for me was the beginning of everything. Even if I only found the courage to publish it in 2016 ”, she said in an interview for Rolling Stone. It is a painful song. Talks about: “A self-harming little girl who can’t deal with the world and to do nothing because she feels wrong, judged, she has a constant weight on her that in the end pushes her to kill herself”. A song that she decided to publish only 3 years later, following one episode in particular: “Without it being published, the song started going around. I will never forget a girl who one evening, around Avellino, she came to embrace me in tears because they had made her feel it and being a self-harmer she recognized herself in my words. She asked me where she could listen to it again and I told her that I had never thrown it out, but just seeing her reaction I made up my mind and the next day I did it, I put it online: it was September 1st 2016. I haven’t stopped since then” .
bullied, Big Moms she therefore decides to start rapping to rebut all those who have always made her feel wrong and have offended her for her physical appearance. Against a world she wants to try to change. Against the obtuseness of people who are always tied to standards of beauty that are too far from reality. “The first to bully me were the ladies of my country, let alone, all of them shouting at me to go on a diet, but that is such a closed reality… Then at dance, where the teacher always put me in the front row because I was good at dancing, but she kept telling me ‘and lose weight!’. At school let’s forget it, on social networks I’m not even saying it “. Not an easy experience for a girl who only asked to live calm and serene with herself. An experience that gave her the opportunity to strengthen her character and fight.
Fighting to be accepted by others but above all to accept oneself. That’s why today she has become one of the champions of body positivity and beyond. Openly bisexual, she is always at the forefront of defending LGBTQ+ rights. To those who ask her if in her opinion today there is a risk that certain battles fought in this way could have effects contrary to the desired ones, she replies: “It is already happening, only that few realize it. Think the speech on pronouns she/her, he/him, they/them it’s going further, because it is sacrosanct that we respect the way each of us perceives ourselves regardless of physical appearance, but you can’t get pissed if a person, not knowing anything about you, doesn’t call you as you would like. Too many rules and too much aggressiveness lead to the opposite effect, yes”.
