She grew up among drug dealers, the story of the Italian singer who thrilled the public of Sanremo

Elody told her story in a deep monologue that thrilled them all. If today she is a staunch artist, her past has been very difficult, sometimes dramatic.

Elody Di Patrizi, born in 1990, grew up in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Rome. With an Italian father, street artist, and a French mother, former model and cubes, Elody's life was easy. Her parents separated when Elody was 8. Both parents had serious drug - dependent problems.

I went home and there was no hot water, I couldn't study, I tried to protect my sister, who's three years younger than me. I tried not to let her know what bad things they were. A situation that made me nervous caused me great anger but that never made me feel overwhelmed by”, " Elody told me in an interview with Corriere della Sera.

In the neighborhood she grew up near drug dealers, alcoholics, sexual beneficiaries. She smoked at the age of 12, to relax. Also, drink.

You feel dirty, that's the truth. It's a context that's likely to involve you. We don't study, nobody does anything, nobody asks about grades. My parents never went to talk to a professor. I only had eight years of school and it took me years to say: I was ashamed as if I were a thief”

At the age of 19, she left for Salento with a man who worked as a Cuban and a singer. Her life took a turn in 2009 with participation in reality show “X Factor” In 2015 he went to “Amili” Maria De Filippi's, where she ranked second. She's attended the Sanremo Festival twice. This time she went to the stage to tell her story through a moving monologue.

The monologue on Sanremo's second evening: “to speak to you this evening I had to tear down a wall. When Amadeus said to me: I'd love to tell you something about yourself, I was scared. Talking in public has always scared me. But then I reflected on the fact that every time I managed to break down a wall, very good things have happened in my life. So I decided to give myself a chance and show you a piece of me.

I come from a suburb in Rome. A genuine, cruel, yet remarkable reality. Where there are people, even rightly, demoralized and angry. And I was one of them. My neighborhood gave me a lot and it took a lot of me, and I'm not just talking about material content like that. not having hot water, having no money, or being able to pay your bills. But I'm talking about the strength to dream and the courage to dream.

I've always wanted to do this job since I was a kid, but it seemed like a really big dream compared to a kid, so small, like me. I didn't feel right. I didn't like my voice. And most of all, I realized I didn't have the means. Many times I haven't given myself a chance: I didn't graduate from high school, didn't get a degree, didn't get a license, didn't study canto. I was wrong, you know. But it is difficult in some contexts to be able to focus on what you want to become when you grow up - what you can do with yourself.

My boyfriend in a song says, “steals our time that's the only thing we have”. And I understand this very well, because if you're born in certain contexts you have to work much harder than others to get what you should have. And so you work harder to survive and it's hard to focus on your dream and focus on yourself.

I tell you very frankly: At the age of 20, I decided that music was over for me and I wouldn't sing anywhere. Not even in the shower, I found that very much too. I had decided not to do anything more. But I was very lucky, because something really beautiful happened in my life. I had a very lucky meeting. I met a musician, a jazz pianist. His name is Mauro Three, and tonight he's with me on stage.

I wanted to thank you at one of the most important moments. I don't know what's gonna happen next in my life, and I wanted to thank you for giving me a chance that I didn't even give myself. We all deserve an important moment in life. And you made me love jazz. And of course I didn't feel high up either for jazz, because it was very elegant, very high, very refined, but in fact, jazz didn't care about the line. Because prejudice belongs to human beings and I was the first to have a prejudice against myself. So I thank you from the heart.

What Mauro taught me, life, music, is that you don't always have to be up to something. The most important thing is to do them, have the courage to do things, and then get settled along the way, you can do a lot of things. Maybe I'm not up to this stage, I'm not up to the orchestra, I'm not up to all this attention. But being at altitude is no longer my problem, because height is a perspective and not a problem”.