Giolì & Assia: A Stimulating Connection, A Prolific Love

When Italian DJ Giorgia “Giolì” Lipari met fellow, Italy-based creative Assia Nani in 2014, she knew that their electric chemistry would build a life of their own design. The budding connection had begun to take form and was ushering way to a career beyond anything either could have expected. Willing to plunge deep into discovery, they catapulted from what some considered a risky dream into a successful partnership of prolific concepts, captivating music, and a surrender to love. 

The web of social media is what originally brought Giolì and Assia together, with Facebook acting as a networking conduit, proving their alliance in both inspired passions and life-long goals. They were sure they had something special independently, Assia having established herself as a photographer and talent manager in entertainment and Giolì a young and fresh solo DJ artist and producer who was climbing her way up the charts. 

Starting out as an artist/manager duo, Assia represented Giolì, and as they worked closely together they quickly realized that there was more to their kismat connection than that of just an artistic collaboration. The two had fallen in love, and to combine forces by integrating their independent talents could either result in pure rhythmic alchemy or end in creative destruction.

“When we began, we had some issues, mostly because I was very young,” Giolì explains. “My parents tried to convince me that I needed to be alone, I needed to create my career first, but I didn’t want a relationship like my parents had, so I made the decision to live my life as I want.”

A vague project slowly took form, as the couple combined their passion for creativity, desire for travel, and need for self-expression. They founded their own record label in 2016 to explore the possibilities, and finally, in 2017, they had landed on a clear direction and formed the electronic-pop duo now known worldwide as Giolì & Assia.

“We wanted to feel free, without any limits, to try different kinds of music,” Giolì explains. Without confinement, they fearlessly navigated soundscapes of both underground instrumentals and harmonic, pop melodies. “When we are sitting in front of the laptop; we don’t have to do this or this; we just try.” 

At a steadfast pace, it took the duo only a few years to hone in on a sound that is distinct yet multifarious, layered in a rich essence that is solely Giolì & Assia. Stoking a magnanimous fire of genre-blurring and bending, they leaned into their influences and aroused sonic echoes of techno, dance, house, indie, and pop music. Creating tracks that are pulsing and tantalizing, these multi-instrumentalists take well-deserved pride in what they produce and have an effervescent and elastic skill of providing striking visual accompaniments to each piece so they can fully realize an entire concept.

“We’re creating everything we want to create, expressing ourselves in music, graphics, or video. We started step-by-step, and then everything became a little bit bigger,” Assia says during a video chat with the pair in early December of 2020. “The reaction of the people was super positive, super lovely and warm, so we said, ‘OK, this is the right direction.’”

As the pair continues to embark on each new creative direction their music takes them, the magic hinges on the balance that they strike in both their collaborative and personal relationships. Giolì is a dreamer, often reaching for the vision regardless of obstacles, and Assia is a realistic executor bringing those dreams to life. Never ideal but rather idealistic, the imagination takes over during the brainstorming process and then opens doors to what is possible. 

There is spontaneity in the creative energy that flows back and forth between the pair. Yes, no, maybe, yes—that seems to be the nature of the collaboration. Giolì says yes; Assia says no; they both say maybe, and then eventually land on yes.

“She is the one who always wants the craziest thing, and at first, I always say no because it’s too hard,” Assia admits. She uses the example of Giolì wanting to place a grand piano on top of an active volcano for one of their filmed live sets. “We put it, we tried to fix all the points and put all the instruments there, and it was too hard, but it was really worth it.”

Giolì & Assia are possibly best-known for that 2019 live performance of Diesis on top of an active volcano in Milazzo, Sicily, which has amassed more than 8.6 million views on YouTube alone. Two creative minds bind together into one forceful soul, and, as Giolì continues to dream, Assia takes the lead and gets the work done. 

“I’m more into these kind of things, like creative, crazy, but she’s the one who really takes care of us,me personally, more,” Giolì states with a knowing grin. “I lose everything. I lost my phone inside a taxi in Bali, in Malaysia … So, I think she has her feet on the ground; I have my head in the clouds.”

Early in their songwriting partnership, they knew that they wanted to weave in the execution of all their passions, including the visual themes, the sonic unity of their tonal structures, and their heart-stirring love. It was only a matter of time that their vivacious adoration for one another wove into their music. In late 2017, the pair made it public to their audiences that this was not just a songwriting partnership, but a life partnership. They released the music video for their single “Starry Nights,” which alluded to that sensual connection, and they removed any and all doubts with the video for the single “Borderline.”

For the most part, the two haven’t faced many obstacles in the industry for being a queer couple who are creating music together; however, they do recall one trip to Malaysia for a gig that was cancelled because of ‘problems with their visas.’ Being fairly certain that it was more a fact of the overwhelming homophobia that still plagues that country, their suspicions were later confirmed after speaking with those who were in charge of the booking for that show.

“They said we cannot enter in the country because we can stimulate the people to be gay,” Assia explains in more detail. “It’s weird that this kind of reality still exists, and music should be universal, but I think this will just need time. There will be a moment where everyone will be free in those countries, but we already have the support from the [fans] there.” 

Being so out and vocal about their love wasn’t a choice they made easily, and they don’t minimize that there were a lot of factors they considered before making things blatantly clear. Giolì even describes the hand-wringing that occurred before releasing the music video featuring their first-ever, onscreen kiss.

“The video for ‘Feel Good;’ I spent like five months trying to decide if I wanted to share this video or not on YouTube because we have a lot of friends in Arabic countries, and we were supposed to play in Saudi Arabia,” she explains. “I was scared of maybe losing the respect or the love from our fans, and I didn’t want them to stop loving us just because of our sexuality. In the other hand, I think we should be proud of who we are, so it was very difficult, but we shared it … one year later.”

The two concluded, with the support of their creative and management team, that if they lost fans, or if promoters didn’t want to book or work with Giolì & Assia because of their queerness, that the band was better off without the negativity. 

“Freedom is our word, in music and even sexuality,” Assia emphasizes. “We are proud of being a couple and being a duo.”

Presenting their true selves in both the way they navigate their creativity as well as how they represent their personal relationship is important to them. The fact that they are queer is not the only thing these women have been critized for in the past, but it by no means is going to change how they approach the evolution of their music, personal growth, or creative process.

“Sometimes, I like to wear a dress or I like to wear a bra [on stage], and usually there’s comments like, ‘You don’t need to show your skin; you can show your talent.’ I started to think, ‘Yeah, maybe this is true. I should just wear all black until here,’” Giolì says as she points to the part of her throat where a turtleneck would typically rest. “But, at the same time, I think, ‘Why does this bother you so much?’ I am a musician; I can show my talent, and I can show my beauty. I should be able to wear whatever I want.” 

Nevertheless, Giolì also admits that she is more sensitive to those kinds of remarks, and the criticism can stir up a feeling of sadness, whereas Assia is unbothered by those kinds of comments and has a strength that Gioli admires. In fact, there is a lot about Assia that she admires, and it’s truly beautiful to listen to the ways in which they see and care for one another.

“When I think about home, I think about her. When I’m sad, I just share with her everything because I want to be covered, protected. It’s what I’m looking for now is someone to grow with; she’s taking my back, always. She never says that she can’t do anything, she can do whatever, even when she doesn’t know,” Giolì says with adoration in her thick, Italian accent. 

Additionally Giolì shares that she just recently got her driver’s license in Italy because she has been touring since such a young age, and she never had time before. She talks about the fact that Assia would take her to her driving classes every, single day and would subsequently wait for her in the car for the one-hour lessons to finish. Now, that’s love.

Assia also has her own list of things she appreciates and admires about Giolì within their professional and personal lives. 

“As you can imagine, she’s the creative spark of the couple,” Assia says with a glow. “She’s so stimulating and comes up with crazy ideas everyday, and I very, very fall in love with this.”

Assia describes that through the fact that Giolì is open to learning and growing in her personal development, she has been able to learn about herself and grow through that different point of view and perspective. 

“Also, I love that I’m never tired of her because you can imagine a couple after six years, it can be hard, especially with a quarantine; we’re always together. It was one of the best years; we learned so much; we love so much to spend time together. This is what I love most,” Assia affirms. 

While COVID has definitely presented some challenges in how the duo are able to express themselves and play in front of live audiences, they are still finding interesting and inspiring ways to stay connected to their passion of making music and to their fans. Since their life before lockdown was dedicated to traveling and performing, the couple has experienced all the physical, mental, and emotional cycles that we all have during quarantine. 

“I think there are two kinds of reactions, and we had both. When we were very productive, we started to write, like, one whole album. But after that period, in the summer, we were very upset because we just wanted to go out and play in front of the people. I think now we are back in the production period because it’s winter, and usually we do this, but I think in summer, we hope to be back because summer is meant to be for travel,” Assia says. 

Admittedly, while periods of time have been both familiar and different to what life was like before COVID, the couple has leaned more into their production and recording talents and are preparing to release a brand-new EP, Moon Faces, which comes out February 12. Possibly some of their strongest material yet, it seems that the time home, the energy and focus on growth, and the strength within the relationship has bode well for the duo. 

While they have ventured into behind-the-scenes roles of music production; record label management; and center-stage, artistic talent, 2021 is just kicking off, and the music moguls are still curating loose goals for what the future may hold.

“This year just taught me to stop having long-term plans,” Giolì confesses. “I just want my family to be healthy and maybe to work a little bit more.” In addition to their new EP, they are stirring up some new collaborations with artists from different countries and are eager to combine different languages into their songwriting. Assia speaks five languages and has integrated French, Spanish, Italian, and English into some of the upcoming releases outside of Moon Faces. 

Also eager to jump into production of a full-length album if they are still unable to tour over the year, the duo know that this could be an intense year of focusing on writing and recording alone with not a lot of opportunities for live performance. Staying creative and amassing a large amount of fresh, new music to be able to play in front of audiences the second they get the chance will be a feasible focal point to stay in that state of stimulation. 

“I’m very proud of what me and my almost-wife have made,” Giolì boasts with the pride of a self-actualized and talented artist mixed with the humility of a woman in love who is passionate about their life together.

As Giolì & Assia continue to forge ahead and create their own space in the world of techno-dance-pop music, their authenticity shines through like the brightest star in the night sky. Never sacrificing the unique and at times extravagant creative vision for what is easiest or most palpable, it will be that fearless drive and the power that they manifest within each other that is certain to continue their ride to the top of a successful career and a beautiful love story. 

*Photos by Riccardo Iozza