The son of noted writer Albert Silvestri, he was born in Rome on August 18, 1968. As a teen he played keyboards in a Duran Duran cover band, and after spending his early twenties backpacking across Europe, he returned home to cut his self-titled 1994 debut LP. Silvestri first attracted significant media attention a year later when he appeared at the famed San Remo Festival. Judges awarded his original "L'Uomo Col Megafono" the Premio Volare, a prize given the song with the best lyrics. In late 1995 he issued his sophomore LP, Prima di Essere un Uomo, a critical favorite that proved a fixture of end-of-year Top Ten lists. From there Silvestri scored the Giuseppe Piccioni film Cuori al Verde, followed by his breakthrough double LP, Il Dado, which launched the fan-favorite "Cohiba," a song dedicated to Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. Silvestri spent much of 1997 on tour in the rock opera FrankensteINmusical, not releasing his follow-up LP, Sig. Dapatas, until two years later. In 2002, he returned to the San Remo Festival in support of his latest album, Unò-Dué, claiming the esteemed Mia Martini award with "Salirò," which emerged as the year's most-played song on Italian radio. Silvestri published his first novel, L'Autostrada, in 2003, and a year later released his first live LP, Livre Trânsito. Il Latitante followed in 2007, with the 35-track compilation Monetine arriving a year later. In December 2009, he participated in a mass protest against then Italian president Silvio Berlusconi with the song "L'imperatore Tiberio" ("the emperor Tiberius"). The LP S.C.O.T.C.H., which also addressed the socio-political state of his country, was released in 2011. That year his single "Il Viaggio (Pochi Grammi di Coraggio)" was featured in the film comedy Immaturi. An EP titled Che Nemmeno Mennea appeared in 2013 in conjunction with his participation in that year's San Remo Festival. Meanwhile, amid touring, ongoing collaborations with other Italian musicians, and public political engagement, Silvestri prepared his first full-length album of new material in five years. Acrobati was released in early 2016 and became the songwriter's first number one album. ~ Jason Ankeny & Marcy Donelson