local storiesJune 1, 2026

Life & Work with Beatrice Staffoni of Los Angeles

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Beatrice Staffoni.

Hi Beatrice, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I originally started out as a dancer. Even as a kid, I always knew I wanted to be a singer, but more than just a singer, I wanted to be a performer. So before I even started taking singing lessons, I was already dancing.

I started dancing when I was seven, and I completely fell in love with it. I began with hip hop and house dance, and then over the years I expanded into a lot of different styles (contemporary, modern, ballet, voguing, heels, jazz funk, waacking, ecc..) I just wanted to learn as much as I could because I genuinely loved dancing. I danced for about eleven years, and at one point I was taking around thirteen hours of classes a week.

But even though dance was such a huge part of my life, I really knew music was still there. So when I was fourteen, I decided it was time to really take singing seriously too. I started with opera training because I wanted a strong technical foundation and I had access to a great teacher. I studied opera for about three years, even though I always knew I wanted to make contemporary music. Eventually I realized I needed to shift towards modern vocal technique, so I started studying with new teachers and mentors focused more on contemporary singing.

At the same time, I started posting online and taking my music career more seriously. In 2024, I began working on my first releases with a producer from London and other producers from my hometown, Verona, Italy. Then in early 2025, I started working with social media strategist Martina Pezzo who slowly became more of a full 360-degree manager figure for me. She really pushed me towards live performance. We built a band, started getting gigs around Verona, and during that same year I released my first EP, Home, a seven-track pop and R&B project.

That was also my final year of high school. After graduating, I moved to Los Angeles to attend music college because I knew I wanted to pursue music full-time. For me, moving to LA meant putting myself in an environment full of opportunities and creative energy.

Since moving, I’ve been performing live, jamming with musicians, and working on my next EP with a producer (from Verona). What’s special about this project is that we created it between two continents, mostly working remotely while I was in LA, then locking ourselves in the studio together every few months when I came back to Italy. It’s a much more intentional and conceptual project for me compared to my first EP. It blends blues, neo-soul, and R&B influences, features live musicians, and it’s something I care very deeply about.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t think, with what we do, it can ever quite be a smooth road.

So, well, first off, I’d like to say that I feel extremely blessed for the support that I have around me. My parents and my friends, the people who work with me: I believe I can say I have a strong support system, and I really do feel blessed because I just know it would be (and it would have been) a hundred thousand times harder without their backing, especially during the tough times.

That being said, I wouldn’t say it’s been a smooth road, especially because of my mental state. I’m a very anxious person and that’s not the best thing to have when you want to pursue a career as unpredictable and non-linear as the music industry is.
In my first years of singing I experienced lots of episodes that resembled panic and anxiety attacks. At 15 I started going to a therapist and she really helped me out. And I guess with time, I grew up, I matured, I learned stuff and with a little (not so little actually) support, my mental health improved. But especially in the first years, I was fighting my own mind a lot.
So yeah I wanna say my struggles were mainly… Like on the mental side of things.

Then, another undeniable struggle was, of course, moving to LA.
I always knew I wanted to move abroad after high school, so I had a long, long time to really get accustomed to the idea of leaving my “safe environment”, my comfort zone behind.
But Los Angeles was a huge reality check for me. I’m extremely grateful to live here and to have this experience, especially because I’m stepping into adulthood and I am genuinely proud of what I get to do every day.
Um… At the same time, it really is intense, it’s a harsh reality. It’s extremely saturated. And, little disclaimer, I was aware of that before moving here.

But I guess I didn’t expect it to be this hard on my mental health, especially like on the loneliness side of things. A lot of people say that Los Angeles is very, like, isolating. Even though I went to college, um… I did have some struggles.
I’ve always had struggles finding a balance between my professional self and and the more chill, social side of life. And while I was still living with my family and I was surrounded by lifelong friends, it didn’t feel like such a big issue. But then, once I found myself alone in a city that wasn’t mine, in a culture I wasn’t too familiar with, I found a lot of comfort in burying myself in work, so I wouldn’t have to deal with what I was feeling (since, honestly, I had no idea how to). Needless to say, that strategy didn’t work.

And then, yeah, of course, the usual struggles that come with working on yourself and on your goals: imposter syndrome and feeling like you’re not good enough, feeling like you’re not doing enough. But that is pretty standard in the music industry, and I would say pretty much any industry.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
So, what I do is, I’m a music artist. I see myself as a singer, dancer, a performer and a songwriter. Definitely a creative.
And my sound is really developing into neo-soul/R&B.

I guess what I am most proud of right now is being able to… well, I would say two main things.
First off, creating a community that actually cares. And I just recently hit 10K on Instagram, and I am super, super proud of that. Not because of the number itself, but mainly because I see that there are people I’ve never even spoken to, people who don’t know me personally that, like, care about what I do and what I have to say and what I have to give and share.
And that makes me really, really proud because it means I found a way to connect with people; it means something about what I do resonates with them. And that’s honesty what i’m here for.

And then, the second thing I’m really proud of is that I’m learning to see music as my safe space again.
For a long time music felt more like some kind of mission I had given myself, and because of that, I put so much pressure on it. And more often than not, I would just lose the fun of making music, creating Art, singing, dancing. I ‘d lost a lot of joy, a lot of ease as well.
But recently, due to a number of factors, I’ve been learning how to let my soul speak through music again, through my voice and through my body. It’s starting to feel necessary again, in a way that feels very natural and very visceral.
And I am really proud of that because I feel like I can finally connect with all of my feelings and all of my emotions again. Art is a need, it’s something deeply human, and I’m sorry I forgot that and I let too much of the business side of things take over.
I’m grateful that my body is starting to feel safe enough again to let that need express itself through Art. It’s incredibly liberating.

And then, what makes me different?
I wanna say the fact that I feel like what I do has a purpose, a human purpose. And it’s to make people feel less alone in what they are feeling, really being a safe space for people. Being a place where they can feel empowered and understood and held. I deeply care about that.
And I’m starting to see that that is working, little by little.
I really care that people feel seen and safe with me and with what I create and my music.
I want people who listen to my music, who come to my live shows, who believe in what I’m creating to go “This is my time. This is my moment. I’m held here, I am fine now. Maybe the world outside is crushing me, but here I am safe, I’m good, I’m happy and I’m also sad, I’m feeling; I’m excited, I feel empowered. This is the space where I can be myself and I can show myself and I can be vulnerable and I won’t be judged”. And that’s, I would say, yeah, that’s what sets me apart, I guess.
I do this for myself and I do this for all the people who know they deserve a space, but can’t find it.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I wanna say that, beyond being this very vulnerable, sensitive person and having all of these emotions, I’m also very rational.
I’m a creative but at the same time I am extremely organized (almost obsessively so) and I follow a very tight schedule that I just impose on myself. So I guess there’s also this other side of me that is very structured and perfectionistic, and needs things to be done properly.

Another thing is that I’m actually quite an introvert, which might not be obvious since I’m aware that I often come across as outgoing or extroverted. And I am. But the truth is that I can feel pretty overwhelmed and overstimulated in large social environments.
I still do it because it’s part of my career, but I feel much better in smaller, more focused settings.
For instance, when I’m creating music, I love locking myself in the studio with the producer and just a few people, and really making everything revolve around what’s happening in that space at that time.
I’m also very sensitive to the energy in a room, and this might sound a bit intense, but it really affects my creativity and my general wellbeing.
I found that with a somewhat positive, authentic energy flow I can feel very connected (to the people and to what I’m doing), and therefore completely free in the creative process.
So even though I may seem extroverted, I don’t feel fully at ease in big environments. On the contrary, I feel drained.

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Image Credits
Cristian Levantino (ig @cristian.levantino)
Blair Reinlie (ig @blair.reinlie)

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