Samurai Jay: The Italian Architect of ‘Merenguetón’
For Samurai Jay, his connection to Latin music began at home. He credits his mother with shaping his musical tastes from a young age. Born and raised in Naples, Italy, the 27-year-old artist — whose name is Gennaro Amatore — vividly remembers dancing to Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” at age 8. Still, when it came time to pursue a music career of his own, he gravitated toward other genres before finding his way back to those influences.
“Here and there, I always made reggaetón songs or songs with the Latin vibe, but I never took that path seriously because I like to do everything,” explains Jay during an interview with Billboard from his home in southern Italy. “I come from metal music. I come from rock music. I experimented with every genre… literally.”
The Rise of Merenguetón in Italy
Today, Samurai Jay is one of the leading voices behind merenguetón in Italy, a genre that fuses the fast-paced rhythms of Dominican merengue with the urban edge of reggaetón. Among the country’s most visible Latin music artists, he has helped introduce the sound to a broader audience through a distinctive style, crafted in collaboration with local producer Vito Salamanca and songwriter Luca Stocco.
Samurai Jay is currently the No. 1 artist in Italy, after his high-energy Italian-Latin hit “Ossessione (Obsession)” took over the country early this year. The song, which features merenguetón with Italian lyrics and a few phrases in Spanish, made its official, high-profile debut on stage at the Sanremo Music Festival, which ran from Feb. 24-28, before rolling out globally across all major digital streaming and download platforms.
“We were the underdogs of the festival, and then things just blew up,” says Jay, who describes the exposure the track and performance received at the festival as “almost too overwhelming.”
“Ossessione” entered the Billboard Italy Hot 100 on March 7, making its debut at No. 5, before climbing to the No. 1 spot the very next week and currently still reigning on the chart after 16 weeks on top.
A New Sound: Latino Mediterraneo
While the artist became a viral merenguetón sensation in 2026, he has spent the past year producing Latin music. In spring 2025, Jay, Salamanca, and Stocco found themselves in the studio experimenting with guitar sounds and Latin beats. The sessions yielded their first hit, “Halo,” which laid the groundwork for their signature blend of Italian urban music and merenguetón.
While fully acknowledging that the rhythms in his current musical works are Latin-derived, he likes to refer to this fusion of sounds as Latino Mediterraneo. “It’s a cool crossover between the Latin culture and our roots. We are from Naples — we are from the south, and I think that actually Latin Americans and Neapolitans are quite the same people; the vibe, the energy, la vibra es la misma,” says Jay.
Jay’s rise in Italy has drawn comparisons to the breakthrough moment that launched Grammy-award-winning Latin pop singer Laura Pausini’s career in the early ’90s. More than three decades later, Jay is building a similarly widespread following, introducing Latin sounds to a new generation of Italian listeners.
Looking ahead, the artist is already eyeing international collaborations. “I think it would be fun to have a song maybe with Rauw Alejandro; it would probably be dope because I think our voices will fit great, or Romeo Santos, maybe, on a Bachata,” he adds, also mentioning Bad Bunny and Young Miko as being on his wish-list.
