Emis Killa

Since emerging on the scene in the late 2000s, Emis Killa (born in Vimercate, Italy on November 14th, 1989) has worked his way up to becoming one of his home country’s best-known rappers. First making a name for himself at seventeen after winning Tecniche Perfette’s 2007 freestyle contest, he went on to release a slew of mixtapes, signing to Carosello Records ahead of his debut studio album, 2012’s L’erba cattiva. Stylistically falling squarely into the pop rap category, the album entered the national charts at number five, eventually rising to number four on the chart sixteen weeks later. The LP spawned a hit single, “Parole di ghiaccio”, the video for which amassed 2.5 million YouTube views in its first fortnight – a record-breaking number of streams for an Italian artist at the time. Later that year, in the wake of the Emilia earthquake, Emis teamed up with fellow rappers Club Dogo, J-Ax and Marracash for the charity single “Se il mondo fosse”, which entered the Italian charts at number two. In 2013, he released his second album, Mercurio, which topped the national charts and was later certified platinum. After performing at the 2013 BET Awards and landing his first number 1 single in Italy with 2014’s “Maracanã”, Emis joined the panel of judges on TV talent show The Voice of Italy in 2016, and found himself atop the Italian album charts again later the same year with Terza stagione, a thematically darker project than his earlier work. In 2018, he matched this achievement with his fourth album, Supereroe, and subsequently signed to Sony subsidiary Epic Records. Two years later, he teamed up with Club Dogo member Jake La Furia for the joint album 17, which served as his major-label debut and once more reached the number 1 spot on the national charts.  In 2023, he released his fifth consecutive number-one album, the conceptual Effetto netto, with every track inspired by a classic film. Two years later, Musica triste, featuring Tedua, Baby Gang, Tony Effe, Salmo, Ele A & Promessa, Capo Plaza, Papa V, and Nerissima Serpe, debuted at number two on the Italian charts.