The singer is a huge Napoli fan: “I only saw the title win on YouTube. Now I hope to celebrate something beautiful with the new signing. What? I’m not choosing.”

Napoli sings: and while all around, among the 60,000 people filling the Hippodrome, the enthusiasm propels you into this mass joy, Geolier feels his time passing like in a fairy tale to be told without missing a moment of his own experience. “In Naples, at home, among my friends. Ask me if I’m happy.” It’s (another) special night, and in Agnano, “galloping” with himself, Geolier will meet 56,000 more, taking them with him among the drones and then flying over them in a symbolic embrace, but not before reminding them that one day—June 26, 2026—they will meet again at the “Maradona,” where it is fantastic to daydream. A few statistics about a rapper who has exploded onto the scene: 116,000 spectators for his two live shows at the Agnano Hippodrome between yesterday and today. “Thank God, the response from the crowd is always there. I’m playing at home, I consider myself a lucky guy, one who got a break early in life. But I have to admit, it’s even better this way.”

He is in his natural habitat.

“I claim my belonging to Secondigliano and therefore to Naples, to my neighborhood and my city. To a land that belongs to me, of which I am proud and which I try to represent in the most appropriate way.”

His memorable year is the one in which he came of age.

“I had just turned 18 and I sensed that my destiny was changing. I could leave the lamp factory where I worked and try to make my dreams come true by releasing my first songs. I started as a child, but I quickly became successful. Things went well for me.”

Rightly so, he never forgets to thank his parents.

“They gave me the chance to be myself, to believe in music, to try a very difficult path. They not only supported me but also encouraged me.”

Has success changed you?

“There is a real risk that it will change you, but you are your own master and you have to be able to choose whether you want to change and in what way. I’ve done some silly things, but they’re just teenage mistakes: they stay there, and if anything, you can use them to realize that they should be avoided.“

What does Sanremo 2024 bring to mind?

”Pointless controversies that aren’t worth dwelling on. Let’s look ahead, to the Champions League, for example.”

That’s (also) why you’re here: you live and breathe soccer.

“It would be more accurate to say that I live for Napoli. I watch other games, of course, the most important ones, especially at the international level. But I can’t give up Napoli, commitments permitting.”

In “his” first Scudetto, in 2023, he didn’t miss a single game.

“I don’t think so. I was always at the Maradona stadium because I had never seen a Scudetto before. My brother Antonio had told me about them because he remembers them from when he was a kid, but I had to look them up on YouTube. Like Maradona: the hero I experienced through stories, videos, and the love you feel when talking about him with anyone in Naples.“

You also played soccer for a while.

”A couple of years, like everyone else, just long enough to realize that it wasn’t my stage. I had to do something else. Let’s just say it wasn’t for me, no offense.“

Your first hero.

”Paolo Cannavaro, I wanted to be like him. Then we hit it off, but by then he had already left, and we became friends. We write to each other often.”

He has a soft spot for captains.

“I’m in frequent contact with Di Lorenzo, he’s embarrassingly humble. And inside, he has the serenity of a leader. I leaned on him during those terrible nights in May…”

What were those?

“The ones leading up to the decisive match against Cagliari, the Scudetto challenge. I was consumed by anxiety, so I sent him WhatsApp messages: ‘Captain, help me…’ And he replied: ‘Don’t worry.’ It was a coolness that wasn’t typical of me. I was afraid we might lose it, even though rationally I told myself: ‘How can we lose it now, at home, in front of 50,000 spectators? But football is unpredictable.”

As luck would have it, the day Noa Lang, striker but also rapper, set foot in Naples, he bumped into Geolier.

“I was at the stadium to shoot a commercial for a video game. Some friends arrived and told me he was there, I think to sign his new contract. We hit it off right away. Like me, he’s infected by music, and he’s very talented. We both have a desire to experiment.”

Maybe you’ll end up on stage together.

“I think it would be complicated for him, as he has other commitments during the week and wouldn’t be able to find a date in his calendar between the league, Champions League, Coppa Italia, and Supercoppa. I’d be happy with just one performance, maybe to celebrate something.”

If you had to choose…?

“I can’t settle for anything, so I won’t say. I’m crazy about Napoli, I always want to win everything. I’ve been lucky: I don’t remember the darkest years, the bankruptcy, Serie C and even Serie B, because I was very young. I’ve had the best. But I’ll never be satisfied, I’m sure of that. The Champions League is really great, eh…”.