Marco Mengoni (born 25 December 1988) is an Italian singer-songwriter who rose to fame in 2009, after winning the third season of Italian talent show X Factor. Since that he has sold over 2.8 million records in Italy, peaking the Italian albums chart seven consecutive times and entering the Top 10 Italian Singles Chart fifteen times. He won the Sanremo Music Festival in 2013 and again in 2023, therefore representing Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest in both years, respectively.

His 2009 debut extended play, Dove si vola, was preceded by the single with the same title, which reached the top spot of the Italian Top Digital Downloads chart and also served as his coronation song. In February 2010, Mengoni competed in the 60th Sanremo Music Festival with the song “Credimi ancora”, placing third in a field of fifteen. The song was included in his second extended play, Re matto, which debuted at number one in Italy. The EP was promoted through an Italian tour, which yielded the live album Re matto live. Mengoni’s first full-length studio album, Solo 2.0, was released in September 2010 and was certified gold by the Federation of the Italian Music Industry.

In 2013, Mengoni won the 63rd Sanremo Music Festival with his song “L’essenziale”. Mengoni was then internally selected by RAI to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö with “L’essenziale”. The song also became the lead single of the album Prontoacorrere, which became his fourth number-one on the Italian albums chart. In 2015, Mengoni released the albums Parole in circolo and Le cose che non ho, which were part of the same artistic project, also including the live record Marco Mengoni Live, all of them reaching the number one of Italian albums chart. After the 2017 collaboration “Come neve” with Italian singer Giorgia, he published his seventh consecutive number-one album Atlantico in 2018. In 2023, ten years after his first victory, he won the 73rd Sanremo Music Festival with “Due vite”, earning him the right to represent Italy again in the Eurovision Song Contest, this time in Liverpool.

During his career, Mengoni has received several awards, including a Nastro d’Argento, two TRL Awards, nine Wind Music Awards, nine MTV Italian Music Awards and a Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards. In 2010 and 2015, he won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best European Act, becoming the first Italian artist to win that prize. In 2013, he also won the MTV European Music Award for Best Southern European Act.

Marco Mengoni was born on 25 December 1988 in Ronciglione, a comune in the province of Viterbo in central Italy, where he also spent his youth. He is the only child of Nadia Ferrari and Maurizio Mengoni.At the age of 14, while studying industrial design at secondary school, he started to take singing lessons. Mengoni later started to perform as a member of a five-piece vocal group. After leaving school, he moved to Rome, where he enrolled in a degree in Languages. During his studies, he occasionally worked as a barman and he performed in piano bars and during weddings. During the same years, he had his first experience in the recorded music business, working as a sound mixer and as a music programmer.

Mengoni auditioned for the third series of the Italian talent-show X Factor in 2009, performing a cover of Eduardo De Crescenzo’s “Uomini semplici”. The category he was part of, “16–24s”, was mentored by Morgan, who chose Mengoni as one of his top four contestants that progressed to the live shows. During the live shows, he performed songs from a wide range of genres, receiving the congratulations and admiration of popular Italian singers such as Mina, Giorgia, Elisa, and Adriano Celentano. On 2 December 2009, Mengoni was announced the winner of the competition, receiving a recording contract with a stated value of €300,000 and being automatically selected as one of the participants to the Sanremo Music Festival 2010.

Mengoni’s winning single, “Dove si vola”, debuted at number one on the Italian Top Digital Downloads chart, and it was included in the extended play with the same title, released on 4 December 2009. The EP, also including the original song “Lontanissimo da te” and five studio recordings of covers he had previously performed during the TV show, peaked at number nine on the Italian albums chart and was certified platinum by the Federation of the Italian Music Industry.