Weekend Music – Numéro Berlin

WEEKEND MUSIC PT. 68: IN CONVERSATION WITH PAULA ENGELS

Anna Klusmeier — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 14:52:36 +0000

We met Paula Engels shortly after she released her debut album, “Kommt von Herzen” (From the Heart). Paula is a musician unafraid to confront every part of herself, even the dark and uncomfortable corners. With this new album, she establishes her identity as an artist. Paula shares with me the intense journey of making the album, the highs and lows of the release process, and how she has gradually learned to care less about other people’s expectations.

Alexandra Schmidt: You recently released your debut album, “Kommt von Herzen”. How do you feel now that it’s out?

Paula Engels: The release felt really good, but mentally I’ve already moved on because the album has been finished for about three months. In the beginning, I always felt like I still had to explain who I wanted to be as an artist and what kind of music I make. But now there’s an album, and people can just listen to it and find out for themselves. That gives me a bit more freedom to do unexpected things.
The release itself was really beautiful, and I got a lot of positive feedback. But for a long time, I honestly didn’t know if I would end up being proud of the album.

What made you doubt whether you’d be proud of it in the end?

For the longest time, I just didn’t know what it sounded like or what it was supposed to sound like in the end. Now it sounds completely different from what I expected. At first, I thought it was going to be a lot darker and weirder. I really wanted it to sound cool. But now it sounds much more like me. It’s not trying to be something it’s not.

Is there a song on the album that surprised you, maybe one that carries different emotions than you first thought, or one that became more important to you over time?

That’s pretty much always the case for me. I almost never write songs with the intention of “I want to write about this specific topic.” Most of the time, I just start writing. I pour out all my thoughts and realize what the song is really about when it’s almost finished.

You’ve already put out a few EPs before your debut album. Looking back, how did your relationship with releasing music change over time?

When I started putting out songs, I realized that I didn’t actually like the process as much as I thought I would. The first time felt a bit like having a birthday. Everyone messaged me saying, “Oh my god, congratulations!” But by the second release, suddenly there was a bar set. You see the numbers from your first release and everyone else’s. I started comparing myself way too much because, for the first time, there was an outside evaluation. It was really hard not to let that affect how I judged my own songs. Eventually, I ended up hating everything I wrote in the following months.

And how did you overcome that?

I was overworked from the years before, and there was just so much new stuff happening all at once. I never really took time to reflect or let anything sink in. So I took a short break and went with my team to a beautiful studio in the South of France. That’s where a lot of songs were created. Songs where I tried to let go of the expectations of others.

You also wrote “Mittelfinger an die Welt” (Middle Finger to the World), which kind of manifests the idea of caring less about what others think. How do you see that now after the release?

I think with that song, I had so many other people’s opinions in my head that I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore. I couldn’t really tell if something was truly my own will or if someone had already talked me into it. After that break in the South of France, it became clearer. Overall, it works better sometimes and worse other times I think I’m still a bit of a people pleaser, but following my gut feeling is really important to me, and it usually works out well when I do.

“Gift” (Poison) and “An meinen Händen klebt Blut” (There’s Blood on my Hands) feel more like rage songs compared to your other songs. How did it feel to express your anger so openly for the first time?

I somehow find it really hard to feel anger. I’m never really angry, and if I am, it’s usually at myself. I think that’s a general issue among women. It’s something that’s kind of trained out of us. But I also think that everyone carries anger inside them. For me, music has always been a place where those “ugly” emotions can exist. A space where you don’t have to be fair. I’ve always loved when music pushes the boundaries that exist in real life. It felt really liberating to have a space where I didn’t need to be rational. Especially with “Gift”, I had so much fun in the studio. Just throwing things out there, saying what I wanted, without worrying if it was fair or not. I’m still working on allowing myself to feel anger and not dismissing it. I wanted the album to include everything I feel.

How did the title “Kommt von Herzen” come about?

I quickly figured out what I didn’t want. I feel like none of the songs on this album were written for anyone else. They all came from my emotions. One day, the idea just popped into my head. For me, “Kommt von Herzen” and “Mittelfinger an die Welt” belong together. My middle finger comes from the heart, you know?

You started writing songs when you were 14. What were they about back then, compared to the ones you write now? Has anything changed?

A lot has changed. In the beginning, my songs were in English because I didn’t want people to understand what I was writing about or how I felt. That’s changed completely. The songs that are hardest for me emotionally are usually the most important ones. The ones that resonate most with others and mean the most to me. Two years later, when I was around 16, I wrote my first song in German. And in that moment, I decided I’d never write in English again. My English songs were honestly terrible. I’m really glad I never uploaded anything to social media back then and that there are barely any recordings left.

The song “560km” seems to be about both geographical and emotional distance. Can you tell me a bit more about it?

I actually had to be convinced to release it. It took me a while to realize that it’s about finding yourself. But it’s also about the distance of 560 km from Düsseldorf to Berlin. I moved really naively; I thought nothing would change. The first nine months in Berlin, I just pushed through. But somehow, I didn’t feel at home in Berlin, and in Düsseldorf I felt like a guest. Suddenly, there were so many different versions of myself, and I didn’t know which one was the real one or if the version I had in my head was even accurate anymore. That’s how the song came about. A jumble of everything, really.

What’s next for you?

I’m going on tour in two weeks. I’m not sure what’s coming after that yet. There are still so many songs from the album process that I really love, but that didn’t make it onto the record. But there’s definitely more music coming, and I’ll be playing some great festivals next year.

How excited are you for the tour?

It’s my first tour, so I think it’s going to be really special. I’m incredibly excited.

Thank you Paula!

WEEKEND MUSIC PT. 65: IN CONVERSATION WITH NILS KEPPEL

Anna Klusmeier — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 16:46:02 +0000

In Germany of 2020, amidst breaking structures and fresh inspirations, a genre-defying star emerged from a dusty music drawer, thought to have been empty for the past 30 years: NILS KEPPEL. With his distinctive synth-infused sound, he managed to take the German underground scene by storm. Appealing to pre-reunited Berlin in the early 1980s, his music evokes a sense of longing and nostalgia for a time, more gritty, rebellious and free than anywhere today. Often hastly classified as Post Punk with influences from New German New Wave (NNDW), his genre-bending music fuels the boiling kettles of Berlin’s sub-culture. For their “Weekend Music Tip”, Número Berlin (Ellie & Cosima) spoke to Nils about his influences, life-performances and unique world view.

photo credits ELLIE HAASE

Cosima: Music has always been a part of your life. You grew up with music as a part of your family. Did you always know you would one day create music yourself, or were there phases in which you wanted to, let’s call it revolt, against the values of your upbringing?

Nils: Fortunately I never had to revolt against my parental home. They were always very supportive. I think they just noticed at one point that I am just feeling much better mentally when I get to make music. They also knew how much work I put into it, generally. And they definitely preferred it to me just getting a 9 to 5 job and being unhappy.

Creating music was always a huge wish of mine, but I didn’t know it was actually possible. Because I grew up very isolated, in a small village, I thought that the people that actually get big with music only happened in the past. Or they had to come from big cities or needed someone to make it possible for them. I couldn’t even play any instruments. Only later did I realize that my skills to play a little guitar and bass are sufficient enough nowadays to write a demo and publish it. So I started uploading my tracks and some music magazine wanted to feature them. Suddenly “a lot of people” listened to it. I didn’t expect that. It was the internet, really, that made a thing out of it. I can imagine that I somehow manifested it, because I always fantasized about it as a kid, sitting in the car, listening to music, what it would be like to be that person performing on stage.

Ellie: It seems like a very elegant path, especially if it all sort of ended up happening because of attention from the outside.

N: For sure. It wasn’t that forced. I never asked anybody for anything. I never went to venues and asked if I could play a gig there. Of course, if that’s your career path that’s totally ok, too! But then they came forward and asked me if I could play a gig. And then a booking agency approached me and told me they wanted to take care of things for me. That’s why I always just took every opportunity given to me. I am really just super content with that.

photo credits COSIMA WIDER

C: I get the feeling your music often gets put in a certain box. How does it make you feel that people always want to put you into a category? Have you even found “your sound” yet?

N: That’s really interesting. When you’re making the music, you’re often not thinking about these things actually. Those are mostly people from the outside, that put things in boxes or say and write about it. When I am sitting down at my desk and start putting together a demo, these things aren’t even crossing my mind. What is important to me, always, is that I don’t just make a song because it works well on the internet. I get the feeling that the things I have put out there sometimes vary greatly, stile-wise. Of course, there are people saying it’s New German New Wave (NNDW) or Post Punk. But I like to keep things open regarding genre. My new album once again has a very different sound. And the songs themselves also differ greatly from each other. The only red hook across all of them I like to keep an eye on, is that I myself enjoy listening to them.

E: You already started delving a bit into your process of writing new songs. Can you pin-point, whether your creative process starts with an idea, an image, or a sound maybe?

N: I actually write very little. On my upcoming album are all the songs I wrote within the last year. Not many get thrown out. In the evening, I just sit down in my little music room with my laptop, and just try to play anything. Either I like it or I notice right away it’s not working out that day. And then I stop immediately. Because then I would associate this pressure of writing a song with the feeling of wanting to make music. And I don’t like that. But if it just sort of flows easily, then I finish the sketch of the song relatively quickly. It takes about an hour and then I have the song. But that’s a rare occurrence and it happens less and less. I have the feeling that it was easier for me to write music back in my hometown. Living in a loud and busy city, I just don’t have the desire anymore to be loud myself. Back in the village it was so suffocatingly quiet, I really needed to be loud.

There is so much music out there, and if people listen to me, which is already a privilege, then I don’t want to take up the time that is given to me by putting things out there I don’t actually feel like talking about. So I try to reduce it. Which is of course quite detrimental for my releases and marketing. (laughs)

C: I get the feeling that – apart from just music – image and video are also super important for your identity as an artist and your positioning. You have a very close relationship to the photographer Marina Mónaco, for example. You and your girlfriend have been featured in her photo series “I saw you in a Song”. How much does your visual ideas influence your work?

N: It’s really important to me, yes. I notice that a song is good if I start walking around in my room and a vision of what the music video would look like starts forming in my head. I don’t overthink it that much. A film just starts rolling, then I know: Ok, this song works, it sucks me in. This was the case for an upcoming single. Being in my studio, I thought: I really need a scene with semaphore flags, even though that has nothing to do with the song. It just happened on its own.
I have Marina and Caroline Ida that always support me with this. Marina, I’ve known for three years now. She somehow had a song of mine in her playlist, then I followed her on Instagram. She posted in her story that she wants to film a music video, so I just sent her my first song, 222, and she said “let’s go”. I told her I had no money, but she wanted to do it regardless. We actually met just over there, at the Schrebergärten at Tempelhofer Feld. She came with her camera already loaded up and we started shooting right away. Since then, we’ve become really good friends.

photo credits ELLIE HAASE

C: You have a song called “Kein Himmel über Berlin” (No heaven above Berlin). Before listening to it for the first time I recently had watched “Himmel über Berlin” (Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders). What’s your relationship with that movie?

N: That’s definitely a very important movie for me. I watched it back when I was still living in my old village. 75% of my grandparents are from Berlin, so I always heard these stories about how the city felt back in the 1950s. It always seemed a very bleak place to me, and very far away. On top of that, I always struggled with anxiety issues. So it was never easy for me to simply go somewhere alone and experience a city by myself. But then I watched this movie and it just triggered this immense curiosity in me: That there are cities that enable you to do more than other cities. The movie motivated me to work on my anxiety and to eventually beat it.
I moved to Leipzig, because of course I knew that the Berlin portrayed in Wings of Desire no longer existed. There are other places where you can meet people who are working towards the same thing. Leipzig was just that. It clicked. It’s really way cheaper compared to Berlin. Many people I know say that Leipzig is the new Berlin. But then again, now people are saying, it’s Wuppertal or Chemnitz. “We have to move there.” Leipzig still works, but I also heard it was cooler ten years ago compared to now. It’s the same story every time. You can’t do what happens in that movie in Berlin any longer. But because we have more friends there, we always end up in Berlin sooner or later.

C: Apart from “Himmel über Berlin”, do you have things that inspire your art?

N: Apart from movies: Live-acts. For example, when I was fourteen, and most of the other boys in school started listening to Hip Hop, Rap and going to the gym, which I never did, I started watching live performances of Iggy Pop. Seeing these shows for the first time, I noticed many people that looked like me. I could identify with them. So, because that was only the case with about two other people in the village, I took refuge in this world of interviews. I discovered new ways to live that nobody told me about before. From that I also learned how to move on stage, for example.
I also didn’t know about small concerts before. I didn’t know you could play in front of only eighty to hundred people until I did it myself. And I certainly didn’t know that something like young bands still existed. I thought all of that had ended in the 1980s. Nobody played instruments anymore. I really had to find my people to put something together. Most of them had so much more experience than I had.
I noticed that songs I write from home might sound good on vinyl or when you stream them, but live… So I like to change things when I am with the group that I have right now. The tracks are still the things I wrote, but they just sound different when you play them live. I like that a song can be more than just a recording that you find on Spotify.

E: You seem very close friends with your band. How much do they influence your creational process?

N: I try to keep them completely out of it. I would really like to have a collaborative band one day, but I think that’s a different project. For the project “Nils Keppel” I already had different members in the lineup. Still, most of the time they’re the same people. But I like to finish up the songs on my own, without outside influence, because there is this very specific image, or rather sound, I am working towards.

E: It shows an appreciation for live-music.

N: I just really, really like to play my music live. Across the whole spectrum. Last year we were the supporting act for an Austrian band called Bilderbuch. We ended up playing in the Vienna City Hall. The Rolling Stones had played there, and three weeks later Billie Eilish. And the day after we were playing at a festival in a 300-people-venue. I liked that. I noticed it makes a difference, also for the audience. I like to be close to the people, so that I can basically hear them shout and sing along.
Just for fun, because I wanted that experience once, we played in a Tequila bar in Rotterdam. I was thinking: what is it like when the audience doesn’t understand your lyrics and doesn’t know the music at all? How do you make sure people still have a good time? If you can somehow internalize the essence of these things, you can take them on for your own audience to perform even better. It’s fascinating, really.

photo credits ELLIE HAASE

C: Is there a highlight-live-performance of yours? Or, with that background, is it too hard for you to choose?

N: I have many friends who don’t like performing live as much as I do. They arrive at the venue, put their stuff down, leave to go to the hotel and only come back for the gig in the evening. – I love all of it: The talking with the people, connecting with those at the merch stand, or backstage at a festival. Also, people watching. And I am not even that much of a “connector”-type-person. I have gigs, that are my favourite gigs – but that often has more to do with the things happening around it. This year for example we ended up playing on the Fusion. Before that I was always saying: Take me anywhere, just not to the Fusion! But what really stuck with me was that there is no advertisement anywhere at that festival. There was not a single brand logo in sight. I thought, this is what it must have looked like at the festivals my mom talked to me about.

Regarding my absolute favourite, it has to be the final gig of our first tour that took place at the SO36. Before I went on stage I cried backstage, because I thought: I never asked for any of this and it’s still one of my childhood dreams come true. I knew the SO36 by name of course, from watching all these documentaries when I was 16 or 17 years old.The concert was sold out, and when I looked out on stage… that really was a goosebump moment.

C: For the release of “Kristall Kristall”, you wrote on Social Media: “Kristall, Kristall, is losing all the beauty and finding it within this loss. Is being young, being old.” How would you put your upcoming album into words?

N: The upcoming album is called Super Sonic Youth. It’s describing exactly this moment. I just turned 25. The first half of my twenties is over. It was the point where I was really starting to reflect on how I want to put these coming five years into use. I noticed that things I used to consider good and normal had shifted. When I started writing the album about one year ago, I was really exhausted. It’s about this moment, of being lost in this world, with what happened within these last years and existing throughout all of that. That might not be put as nicely as I did for Kristall, Kristall, but I am addressing a similar feeling.

WEEKEND MUSIC PT. 64: IN CONVERSATION WITH THE IRREPRESSIBLES

Anna Klusmeier — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 15:40:57 +0000

With Yo Homo! Jamie Irrepressible tore open the borders of queer indie rock – melding punk fire, symphonic beauty, and raw desire into what critics hailed as “a milestone in queer music.” Now, with Yo Homo Deluxe – out today on Of Naked Design Records – The Irrepressibles return with a bolder, more expansive vision. This new edition adds fresh tracks and alternate versions that push the record’s radical celebration of sexuality, sensuality, and queer empowerment even further.

Known for blending music, image, and performance into a single emotional landscape, Jamie has long stood at the intersection of art, desire, and freedom. From the viral beauty of In This Shirt to the visceral urgency of Ecstasy Homosexuality and What I Am, Queer!, The Irrepressibles have become one of the defining voices of unapologetic queer expression in contemporary music.

For Numéro Berlin, Jamie speaks about desire as resistance, queer joy as a weapon, and why Yo Homo Deluxe is more than just an album

Numéro Berlin: Yo Homo Deluxe expands on a record already called a queer milestone. What did you want to push further with this edition?

Jamie Irrepressible: There were tracks that were part of the same world and message that I wanted to add to the record and some of the tracks on the initial digital release I wanted to improve on before it was set onto CD and could no longer be altered.

Your music blends erotic energy with symphonic beauty. How do you keep it raw but still cinematic?

There’s always a sense of catharsis or raw emotion as the focus of my songwriting and then I orchestrate what I call a landscape around this that holds the emotion of the words and the meaning of the song.

What I Am, Queer! feels like both a love letter and a battle cry. What inspired that balance of tenderness and defiance?

It’s about humanity as the resounding morality. Far too many supposed moralities lack humanity or a true sense of compassion and care.

I think we lose sight of this often in the interests of being the same, fitting in, or feeling like we belong, rather than celebrating what makes us different. Life would be very dull if we were all just the same. So, it’s about owning this difference, how it’s your nature, and how you accept that the next person is different to you.

You invited queer string players and allies to join you for Pride. Why was community participation so important this time?

I feel we live in a time of so much corporate and manufactured music. It’s nice to reach out and do something as an indie band that connects a sense of community beyond what we are constantly pushed from mainly American corporations through their social media platforms.

If Yo Homo Deluxe were a single visual – an outfit, a pose, or a scene – what would it be?

Earlier songs were romantic and dreamlike, while Yo Homo! is much bolder. What sparked that shift?

The desire to put into music desire. To make a record about being homosexual with a focus on the sexual. The part we often shield from the straight world out of shame. But that is so much the thrust of most straight music. It’s record by and for the queer community. My earlier work though always openly homosexual was always focused on the beauty and love of being in love with other men.

Desire runs through the album – sometimes soft, sometimes fierce. Do you see desire today as political, personal, or both?

I think for me simply there’s a chance to make a record like this and it be heard. Whereas it would have had to be more coded in the past, more disguised.

Looking at your journey from Mirror Mirror to now, what future do you want to help create for queer art and expression?

My aim is to be part of the message. To be part of the story and the personal story of queer people. In the past to make music that inspires greater connection and appreciation of the naturalness of queer sexuality but with this record it’s like a space away to be fully ourselves.

Your music is often labelled “genre-defying.” How do you interpret that, and how would you describe your sound?

For me genre is just a means to express different emotions. On this record I use grunge/rock/punk distorted guitars as they express the sexual and visceral so well for me. On earlier records I used orchestral instrumentation to create the space for intense internal emotion and sorrow. I’m very interested in different genre’s currently to express other spaces that hold different senses of time space, lineage, and emotion. I will always be Irrepressible in my way of working with music.

Visuals have always been central to The Irrepressibles. How does fashion or style feed into your songwriting?

I love allowing other visual artists to collaborate and take the music into film, or a photograph, or design an outfit that fits the sonic. For me that’s what is so great about pop music. It’s where fashion, art, and music collide.

You’ve worked with artists from Röyksopp to Tinlicker. What have collaborations taught you about your own voice?

In an early collaboration with another dance artist, I started to explore singing in falsetto rather than head voice which sits much better in electronica. I used to sing more often in head voice / countertenor with guitar and classical music as it loud and powerful, but the soft falsetto voice works best in electronic close mic music. Royksopp were and are the wind beneath my wings in the studio. They are respectful, kind, and enthusiastic – it was pure joy to work with them, a high even. They are wizards with the sound and craft of electronic music. With Tinlicker we have only worked online. They send me instrumentals which I compose lyrics and melodies over. Again, I adore their work and the collabs we made together.

Live performance has been key to your story. How do you want audiences to feel after leaving a Yo Homo show?

Empowered and full of joy! We’re very excited about the shows at EarTH tonight (Friday 29^th August) and in Manchester on Sunday (31st August.)

The new album is coming out today, just in time for this interview. Check it out!

WEEKEND MUSIC PT.61: In Conversation with ALCATRAZ

Anna Klusmeier — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 16:02:16 +0000

If you ever spot a red Mustang cruising through Berlin, chances are you just met Lenny Altaras, musician, actor, and the creative force behind ALCATRAZ moving between lively sounds, film sets, and Berlin’s chaos. Growing up in berlin as the son to a composer and an actress, he inhabits an artistic world as layered as himself. In this interview Numéro and Lenny Altaras talk about inspirations, Berlins sexiness, and how a seemingly banal Mustang can come to symbolize rebellion.

Franka Magon: You grew up in an artist family. And that clearly inspired you in some way. What was it about your parents’ artistic work while you were growing up that made it seem so desirable that you also wanted to go in that direction?

Lenny Altaras: My parents always let us approach art with caution, because of course it’s not an easy business. And the dream of a Jewish mother is always a doctor or a lawyer. That worked out well for us haha.

Art was always a topic, it was always discussed at the table. My father is a composer and I had to start playing violin when I was five, there wasn’t a single day off in the week. Today I’m grateful for that, it’s an artistic foundation I got at home, and that’s priceless.

What I find so inspiring about my mother is that, despite her personal understanding of art, she has this fundamental pragmatism, she just sits down and gets things done. She was an actress, a director, then started writing books, published six of them, and now she’s doing stand-up comedy. She doesn’t leave anything alone; she sits down, tackles it, and just does it without overthinking. That’s incredibly inspiring. You don’t have to stick to just one job in life, I think that’s such a beautiful idea. In art, everything is connected anyway. And that’s exactly how I see it too.

I’ve always floated somewhere between film and music; both are still my biggest interests in life.

Would you say that, at your core, you’re more of a musician or more of an actor?

Music is what fulfills me, but it’s incredibly refreshing to dive into the world of film from time to time. Every job eventually gets monotonous.

You’re with LIVE FROM EARTH, the label is closely connected with Berlin’s zeitgeist, just like your music. What is it exactly that makes Berlin special to you?

What makes Berlin special to me is that it’s poor but sexy. I enjoy Berlin and think it’s a great city to come back to, because time just ticks differently here. Even when you’re at a stressful intersection, at Kottbusser Damm, somewhere on Kottbusser Brücke, where a lot is actually going on. The clock ticks very slowly here. It’s a curse and a blessing in this city that you can still have a high quality of life for little money. It’s easy to lose your drive to be productive, you’re just left alone here.

What kind of mood does ALCATRAZ convey for you?

A basic atmosphere in ALCATRAZ is the longing for something you can never really reach. That’s a core vibe you find a lot in 80s music, and also a bit in the music I started with like Darkwave, Synthwave, and of course Italo-Disco too.

My next project will be called Eurotrash. For me it can be a way of living, a group of people, certain activities that define a certain lifestyle. Eurotrash is a festival nomad from central europe, ecstasy on a beach in Croatia, couchsurfing in Barcelona, playing bingo in a village pub in Albania. Half dropout, half scene kid, half lost soul, half legend.

Hedonistic, improvised, subcultural, and slightly self-destructive.

Where did you draw the inspiration for that project?

With Eurotrash, I have a visual world in my head, very cinematic. I use lots of film reference and let myself be inspired by a character or an image that I still have in mind. Then I try to transform the whole thing into music.

Your new track red mustang was recently published. What was special about the process of creating it?

I made the instrumental myself in Berlin, and then I was in L.A. in May to work on music, I was in the studio with a Dutch producer.

I had rented a red Mustang back then. I guess you could call that my American guilty pleasure.

And then he said, just make it about your Mustang. Something totally banal. I loved the idea and it really fit the song.

What does the red Mustang mean to you?

It’s about breaking away, caught somewhere between emotional detachment and vulnerability. For me, it captures the feeling of young love, passion, and rebellion.

Is the red Mustang your favorite car?

No, I don’t think so haha. A red Mustang in Berlin… I don’t know if that would work, but of course it would be very on brand if it happened. Let’s see…

We’re curious. Thank you.

WEEKEND MUSIC PT. 50: DOECHII: A NIGHT OF FIRSTS AT THE GRAMMYS

Anna Klusmeier — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 11:52:16 +0000

Last night, rap history was rewritten. While the world cheered for Beyoncé’s latest win, the spotlight was on Doechii, who became only the third woman ever—and the first with a mixtape—to win Best Rap Album at the Grammys. An undeniable victory for hip-hop, for women, and for a new wave of artistry that refuses to be boxed in. With her genre-fluid sound and razor-sharp lyricism, Doechii has been reshaping the rap landscape, blending Southern grit with futuristic production and fearless self-expression. Her mixtape swamp princess not only dominated playlists but also cemented her place among rap’s most visionary artists. Her Grammy win is more than just an accolade—it’s a shift in the industry, proof that experimental, boundary-pushing rap can take center stage.

On stage, Doechii delivered one of the night’s most electrifying performances, seamlessly transitioning between Denial Is a River and Catfish. It wasn’t just a show; it was a statement. Every movement, every note, every breath felt intentional—a reminder of why she’s one of the most exciting voices in rap today. And then there was the look. Draped in avant-garde elegance, Doechii turned heads on the red carpet, her Glamour Germany-approved ensemble proving she’s just as much a force in fashion as she is in music.

Beyond the glossy pop moments of the night, this was a RAP moment, one we should all be celebrating. So in your Grammy recaps, make space for Doechii—she’s earned it.