Mao, stage name of Mauro Gurlino, was born in Turin, Italy, on 16 April 1971. As he likes to say, Turin is somewhere between Foggia and Aosta. He earned a degree in History and Criticism of Cinema at the University of Turin, with a thesis on Adriano Celentano’s musical film “Yuppi du”. «He is and has been anything», as a journalist once put it, describing his eclectic thirty-year career.
In the Nineties he led the band Mao e la Rivoluzione, releasing two records for Virgin Records (“Sale” and “Casa”), attending the Sanremo Festival with “Romantico” and performing the opening act for Oasis. He presented, with Andrea Pezzi, several shows on MTV Italy (“Kitchen”, “Hot”, “Romalive”, “Tiziana”, “Tokusho”), and has been a radio host since high school (Rai Radio 1, Radio Deejay, Radio Città Futura, Radio Flash). As an actor he appeared in “20 Venti” by Marco Pozzi, “500!” by Giovanni Robbiano, Lorenzo Vignolo and Matteo Zingirian, “Perdutoamor” by Franco Battiato, “A/R Andata+Ritorno” and “Passione sinistra” by Marco Ponti, “I solidi idioti” by Enrico Lando, as well as in short films by Enrico Iacovoni, Nicola Rondolino, Igor Mendolia and Guido Norzi.
Over the years he has collaborated with Delta V, Max Gazzè and Morgan, producer of his first solo record “Black mokette”, released by Sony Music and followed by the soundtrack for “500!” on Mescal. With Santabarba he played as resident band for the Rai 2 show “Scalo 76”, and was resident musician for “Ventura Football Club” on Rai Radio 1.
For over twenty years, with his artistic collective CortoCorto, he has organised showcases for the Turin nightclubbing scene through the soundtrack contest “Duel”, the song contest “LaBase” and the talk show “Il Salotto di Mao”, formats which have hosted more than 1,000 artists. He was a member for ten years of the trio Le Voci del Tempo. He owns and runs CortoCorto STUDIO, an audio-video recording and production studio in Turin’s San Salvario neighbourhood.
In 2010 he published his third solo record, “Piume pazze”, distributed for free online, followed by two music novels, “Meglio tardi che Mao” (Express Edizioni, 2011) and “Olràit! Mao sogna Celentano e gliele canta” (Arcana Edizioni, 2013). Between 2019 and 2020 he returned with the singles “Nudi alla meta” and “Le cose”, and the music video for “Scusa caro vicino”, born from a collaboration with writer Enrica Tesio. In 2022, twenty-five years after “Casa”, he released the music video for “Stringimi 25”, a duet with Bianco filmed at the Murazzi del Po.
In 2025 he joined Delta V as the opening act for their “In fatti ostili” tour, previewing several unreleased songs from his forthcoming album.
www.mao.it
