Article credit: Rolling Stone Italia / Michele Bisceglia
Photo credit: Davide Armani & Nico Brignoli 

*Translated from Italian - original article here*

Italian and international artists, producers and topliners, from Hendrix Smoke to Lazza, from Matt Cohn to Calcutta, met in Milan to write together and exchange ideas. Here's how it went...

"A small miracle: something that does not exist, after two hours there is." This is how Federica Abbate comments on Anna's song that we just finished listening to in one of Moysa's studios in Milan, where Universal Publishing brought the UMPG Global Writing Camp, an event for insiders at the highest level, at the end of March.

Indeed, next to Federica are rapper Anna and American producer Hendrix Smoke, a professional beat maker who has worked with international stars such as Nicki Minaj and Future. 

They are all gassed up, and the air becomes even more electric when, at one point, Lazza walks in the door: "We closed the track in two hours, it's mega-radiophonic," says the rapper, happy with the work done in the studio next door with producer Roy Lenzo - a Grammy nominee for his productions with Lil Nas X - and Davide Petrella, a homegrown author who signed Lazza's biggest hit, Cenere.  

For these three days at Moysa, Universal Publishing has rounded up four notable U.S. producers in Italy - in addition to the aforementioned Hendrix Smoke and Roy Lenzo, there are also Matt Cohn and Sean Turk - to join such stars as Mahmood, Bresh, Ernia, Capoplaza, Clara, Blanco, Tony Boy, Calcutta and, indeed, Anna and Lazza. 

Together with them, in a Warholian Factory context, work authors and topliners, that is, those who develop the melodies of the pieces: Federica Abbate, Davide Petrella, Jacopo Ettorre and Alessandro La Cava. 

"We go on late into the night," says Lucrezia Savino, A&R of Universal Music Publishing Italy who organized the camp, proudly, describing this project as "a beautiful artistic hub, a creative laboratory where artists, topliners and producers write songs together, starting from scratch."

This is the first time ever that an international camp has been organized in Italy. "Last year, for example, we took Mahmood, Rhove and Anna to Lisbon," Savino explains, "then there was a joint venture between Mexico and Nashville and a super-trap camp in Paris. Of course, in Italy there have already been writing camps between Italian artists and Italian producers, but never with American producers like we’ve got here today." 

The camp is a creative workshop, and the exchange of ideas and input is constant: "I'm very happy because a magical atmosphere has been created in the studio, everyone gives each other advice and collaborates with each other, which is quite rare," says Savino: "And I was also pleased to see that so many colleagues from other labels-Warner, Sony, Island, EMI-and so many managers and other insiders who were intrigued by the camp came by to say hello, and then maybe even stayed for lunch or dinner."

Indeed, the goal of Universal Music Publishing's Global Creative Group, which set up this three-day Milan event, is to support local artists and push them toward global success. 

Established in October 2022, the working team brings together creative leaders from around the world and is committed to the forefront of the international songwriting scene, including supporting unprecedented fusions between musical genres. 

How do they achieve this goal? Through specific borderless programs, including collaborations between different styles and geographical areas, featuring between artists, and songwriting workshops, such as this one organized in Milan at the end of March, or other similar projects that in the past have touched countries such as Brazil, Africa, China, Mexico, India and Korea.

This is therefore a baptism of fire for Italy, and we have the pleasure of snooping behind the scenes and seeing how a song is born and grows out of the encounter between star and striped producers and tricolor artists.

"Honestly, it's really very nice," says producer Sean Turk sitting in front of the console on which he is working on a Tony Boy track, written today with Jacopo Ettorre. 

"Usually before sessions I'm nervous, but here we found the right chemistry right away, we understood each other immediately, and we created something new," says Sean, a producer who has worked with Bad Bunny, Lil Wayne, and Feid: "Compared to me, Tony and Jacopo look at the structure of songs differently, they opened my eyes to how to rearrange a song in a way I would never have thought of."

The UMPG Global Writing Camp works like this: for three days, on a rotating basis, a producer, an artist, and a topliner, or he or she who writes the melody lines for the songs, sit in each studio at Moysa. These American and Italian professionals have never met before, but in less than 24 hours they pull out a song together to make it an upcoming hit.  

Studio you go, atmosphere you find: for example, Calcutta and Matt Cohn are almost in the dark, focused, absorbed in their work. While Cohn, a producer who worked on The Weeknd's Dawn FM, tells us about his latest trip to Italy for a friends' wedding, Calcutta sits on a small sofa grinding out ideas, verses and melodies. We step out so as not to disturb him further, but in the hallway we pass a buoyant Davide Petrella, fresh from a full day at work with Lazza and Roy Lenzo.

"They have the sound, we have the songs," Petrella explains his point of view on the differences between U.S.-made music professionals and Italians. "Americans can learn from us how to write songs," Petrella says, "because the sound of the English language makes everything easier, while sewing lyrics and melodies in Italian is more complicated. We are here to mix, I like to compare and I am always happy to meet new producers and artists, it is always stimulating and an opportunity to learn something from someone else."

Of course, we also want the American point of view, so we ask Hendrix Smoke what he thinks are the biggest differences between the U.S. and Italy in the area of music production: "You have better speakers here than in America!" he comments, laughing and pointing to the Moysa speakers framing his station. 

Still with his hood over his head, Hendrix becomes more serious: "Anna and Federica wanted to get to work right away, without getting lost in too much chatter, and we didn't stop until we were done," here's another difference between the evidently more relaxed world of Atlanta from which he comes and Milan, Italy, where we are now. "I had the beat, they put the words and melody on it, and it was easy to work on, great," Hendrix concludes. On a first, quick listen, Anna's piece frankly sounds like a landmine to us.

"Working with foreign people spurs you on more," says Jacopo Ettorre instead, "If only because they are happy to be on the other side of the world and so they convey that excitement to you." Sitting on a small sofa at the entrance of the studios, in a moment of relaxation, Jacopo explains the typically Italian approach to writing (remember that there is also his hand in pieces such as Mahmood's Tuta Gold or Elodie's Due, just to name a couple): "We are inside the musicality of the songs, we have catchy melodies and lightening structures in our blood. Americans, on the other hand, follow taste much more, which is more subjective, and their work is a continuous flow of ideas, they get gassed up right away, unlike me, who is more finicky and concentrates maybe for a long time on a single piece of melody." 

Spending a few minutes in the control room with producers, songwriters, and singers is a great opportunity to understand who does what in the process of building a song and appreciate even more the craft dimension of authorship.

So we take the opportunity to have Federica Abbate explain to us who she is and what a topliner like her, a recurring name in the credits of homegrown hit-singles, does: "I take out the melody that's already inside a beat and bring it to the top, I maximize what I'm hearing."

Federica is enthusiastic about her work and explains with great humility and transport that "Americans usually start with samples, they are much darker in the construction of the beat, while we are used to starting with harmonic turns." And on creating a song like the one he did today with Anna and Hendrix Smoke, a potential hit written in less than a day, he says with great insight, "That's the way it has to be, because if you stay too long on something it's because it doesn't work."

Lucrezia Savino, Universal Publishing's A&R who takes us on this musical journey through the hit factory built on the U.S.-Italy axis, translates today's work this way: "A producer like Hendrix brought in some loops of his own and once he chooses with the artist the one to work on, he reopens the project and adds all the instruments to it, like drums or whatever. Then Anna sings on it and Federica helps her with the melodies." And the bombshell is served.

Each producer has his own magic touch and his own concept of working. If you can hear the typical Hendrix Smoke bouncing in Anna's fledgling track, Roy Lenzo talks instead about "variety" of sounds in the urban pop tracks he works on, input that also comes from experiences like this: "When I travel I always see and hear different things that inspire me and that I then put into the work I do at home."

For Lenzo, being a producer means "bringing out all the ideas that go around in a studio, making sure there is a real collaboration between the artists involved, and bringing out the best song possible."

According to Sean Turk, on the other hand, "on an abstract level, the producer helps the artist paint the picture in their head: I put in the piano, the drums, the bass, and from scratch we pace the song." But what is the most important part of a song? "Lyrics and melody: if it sticks in your head and you find yourself singing it, it means it worked. Every song has a chance to be a hit, but in the end it's up to people to decide whether it's a hit or not."

"The song has to have a focus, to talk about something and not be a jumble of different stuff," explains Davide Petrella, co-author of four hits at the last Sanremo: "There has to be consistency. I'm a big fan of words, both in a deep key and in a light, entertaining key: when you can create the right mix of words on the right melody, you smash everything." And the piece you worked on today with Lazza and Lenzo, what are its prospects in that regard? "Honestly, it sounds very cool to me, it's killer, and it might come out soon."

At a time in history when there is much more attention to the work of producers and authors and their names emerge much more than in the past, when they remained hidden behind artists and catchphrase titles, it is interesting to ask those present what advice they would give to a young person interested in taking this path.

"Writing helps to write," is Jacopo Ettorre's answer, "You have to write a lot and be self-critical, have a lot of experiences. Being curious is the real key to taking this path and doing this craft."

Relaxing at the mixer, Roy Lenzo advises instead to "start working with your friends, create new genres: it's useless to look for the hook with the biggest artist because maybe the next Bad Bunny or the next Lil Nas X is sitting right next to you."