Serena Brancale grew up in Bari, on Italy's Puglia coast, in a house where music played constantly; her mother, a musician and teacher, gave her first lessons. She studied violin, theater and dance as a child, then earned a jazz vocal degree at the Conservatorio Piccinni. In 2011 she started the Serena Branquartet, blending nu-soul with jazz, and spent years building a following on that sound before turning back toward her own roots.
Her breakthrough came when she began singing in her native Puglian dialect, an homage to Pino Daniele, who had urged her to write in her own tongue. "Anema e core" carried her back to the Sanremo festival a decade after her 2015 debut there with "Galleggiare," went platinum, and led into her fourth album, Sacro. The duet "Serenata," with Alessandra Amoroso, became her biggest chart hit, and she returned to Sanremo again in 2026 with "Qui con me," picking up three awards.