Willie Peyote

Willie Peyote is the stage name of Guglielmo Bruno, an Italian rapper and singer-songwriter born in Turin in 1985 and raised in the nearby town of Leinì in a family of amateur musicians. His stage name fuses the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote — mistakenly known in Italy as «Willie» — with peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus, and also nods to his real first name. He started out playing bass in a teenage punk band before turning to rap, initially performing as Gugi and forming the collective S.O.S. Clique with producer Kavah and rapper Shula.

Over a series of solo albums and mixtapes he built a reputation for sharp, self-deprecating and socially critical lyrics delivered over a sound that moves fluidly between rap, indie pop and rock, distinguishing him from more mainstream Italian hip hop. Tracks such as «Ottima Scusa», «La tua futura ex moglie», «Le Chiavi In Borsa» and «C'era Una Vodka» showcase his mix of irony and melancholy, addressing precarity, relationships and Italian social mores with a conversational, often sarcastic voice.

His profile grew significantly with mainstream exposure including an appearance at the Sanremo Music Festival, which introduced his critical, anti-conformist songwriting to a much broader Italian audience while keeping the rap-rooted identity that defined his earlier underground work.