42,000 pparticipantssix locations and sixty-eight artists from twenty-one countriesFor sixty-five showstwenty-one of which are exclusively Italian. With one international share of 40% and an increasingly inclusive and feminine line-upthe 2025 edition of C2C Festival it reaffirmed the festival’s ability to blend experimentation and accessibility, music and thought, club culture and visual arts. A collective experience which, as the artistic director recalled Guido Savini“It will continue to create wonder.”
Among the voices that have embodied this spirit is AnnahstasiaAmerican singer-songwriter and visual artist who mixes contemporary folk, soul and blues in an intimate and spiritual search for freedom. Born in Los Angeles to a Nigerian father and a Wisconsin mother, Annahstasia Enuke (also discover here on Spotify) has transformed his multicultural heritage into artistic language.
Grandson of Lenny Kravitz, raised between music, art and fashion thanks to parents who were both designers and stylists, she embraced a total creative practice from a very young age: song, visual performance, image, identity. Self-taught on guitar and voice, she discovered soul and blues thanks to an iPod that her famous uncle gave her as a teenager, and since then she has built a path that initially saw her sign a recording contract at 17 years old, before then leaving the industrial mechanisms and regaining full control of her art.
Annahstasia, 30, a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter and visual artist, now lives in Los Angeles. Photo: Press Office
His debut EP, Sacred Bull (2019), was the debut of a powerful and revolutionary voice: “I make soul that lasts generations,” he declared. Now with the album Tether carries out a project in which folk, soul and experimentation come together. After having opened the concerts of Lenny Kravitzperformed on stages like those of SXSW and collaborated with brands like Gucciarrived in Turin for her first Italian performance, bringing the magnetic power of her album to the C2C stage Tether. We meet her to talk about vulnerability, the voice as a healing tool and what it means today to write music “with intention” in a fast-paced world.
Annahstasia. Photo: Press Office
You started very young and chose artistic independence early. When did you realize you wanted to follow only your inner voice?
I never had another option. My voice only works in the direction of my truth. I have been gifted with resonance, and I honor this gift by aligning intentions and actions, with the goal of bringing healing and relief to the world.
In many interviews you talk about your relationship with vulnerability. Do you feel freer when you write, sing or perform live?
When I write. It is the moment when there is no form yet, everything is possible. Sometimes I sing without words, only sounds that could become words, but in which the emotion is pure. I can only rarely find that original freedom, when I reproduce it through song.
Your album Tether it’s about connection and roots. What anchors you to reality, while your music explores such deep emotions?
Breathing, and my relationship with gravity. They keep me at home in my body, which is the only constant I know. Everything has its seasons, and emotions pass like waves.
You grew up surrounded by music, art and photography. Do you ever imagine your songs as visual scenes before recording them?
Always. At first they are stories that play out in my mind. Those stories guide me towards the sonic world of production. Everything is intertwined in the narrative of the music.
Your sound combines modern folk, soul and blues. Is there an artist or record that has changed the way you perceive the female voice in music?
Yes, without a doubt. Nina Simone and Buika. I discovered them early on, and since then they have defined what I look for in my own voice.
Lenny Kravitz’s nephew, he owes his discovery of music with the first iPod he received as a gift. Photo: Press Office
You said that art should be “consumed with intention”. What does it mean for you today to create or listen to music with intention, while everything is moving so fast?
It is a constant reminder that I must proceed at my own pace, listening to the internal time of knowledge. Today everything flows too quickly, and the world tends to take what you offer and ask for more and more — especially when what you’ve built comes from care and reflection. Those who look from the outside see only the result, not the years of silent work. Sometimes that request becomes a precious stimulus, but other times you have to resist it, to get back in touch with your most authentic desires. The pace of the world is brutal, leaving no room to savor life, and time seems to dissolve. I, on the other hand, try to remain faithful to my glacial pace, full of discoveries and slow gestations: when the time finally arrives to create again, it’s like witnessing a sunrise.
Your music combines strength and sweetness, but also a spiritual dimension. Is there a ritual in your writing or performing?
For me, performing is like becoming a channel. You open yourself to a divine force, to a frequency that passes through you like electricity. My only ritual is to try to answer that call whenever it arises. And that’s most of my work.
Many young women find a form of empowerment in your music. Do you recognize yourself in this?
I try to convey universal emotions, the best I can. It’s powerful to be able to feel again, in a world that wants us anesthetized and always optimized. Empowerment, for me, is loving every state of being, finding beauty in the full range of experiences life offers. This is how we find the seed of commonality between us.
You lived between Los Angeles and New York. Which influence do you hear stronger in your music: Californian freedom or East Coast energy?
Definitely California. The open landscapes, the vast sky: all this is in my music.
C2C celebrates experimentation. What fascinates you about bringing your music into such a context, among artists who mix genres and languages?
I like to dissolve genres, because I don’t really believe they exist. Music is music, and we live in a world where everything is contaminated: it’s nice to see what can arise from these exchanges.
C2C Festival 2025 ©llum-collettivo
If you weren’t a musician, what would you be today?
Probably a figurative artist: and I will be one again, when I have time. I would also like to dedicate myself to research, lose myself in studying, look for answers.
C2C Festival, a record edition
On the long weekend ofTurin Art Weekfrom 30 October to 2 November, C2C Festival signed a record edition. A milestone that confirms the festival – reached twenty-third edition and sold-out for the fourth consecutive year – as one of the most visionary musical realities in Europe.
Under the title Per aspera ad astra and in memory of its founder Sergio Ricciardone (who passed away in March this year), as always C2C has transformed Turin into a mosaic of sound and visual experiences: from Lingotto Fairs at OGRfrom the Royal Theatre with C2C Talks until Le Roiwhere the showcase dedicated to young talents took place. There is also space for special projects such as C2C Kids!dedicated to the little ones, e TMLAB – Transnational Music Laba European initiative that promotes mobility and exchange between new artists.