Mina Richman

In the artist's words:

Honest. Queer. Self-determined.

It is the search for a purpose, a perspective and a direction in life that drove the queer German-Iranian Mina Richman to music at an early age. Born in Berlin but raised in the small town of Bad Salzuflen, she commuted between worlds and discovered treasures such as Joan As Policewoman and Nina Simone in her aunt's CD collection. Soul and blues, hip-hop culture and the revolt of the great female singer-songwriters are her inspiration as she works on her debut EP "Jaywalker" (2022), with which she is nominated for the PopNRW Award as best newcomer. Raised by her father to be a feminist "by mistake" - as she once put it in an interview with Die Zeit - she used the famous Cher quote "Mom, I am a rich man" for her artist name.

The solidarity song "Baba Said" suddenly went viral during the revolution in Iran and made the queer German-Iranian known around the world overnight. Combining the musical with the social has always been important to her. With renowned festival slots at the New Fall, Herzberg and Reeperbahn Festivals and support shows for Maxim, Anna Calvi and Alice Merton, among others, Mina shows that "at 25, she's already quite a power woman" (WDR5 2022).

In her debut album, which will be released in March 2024 on the Ladies&Ladys label, Mina Richman faces up to growing up. She returns to her childhood with a great deal of honesty and deals with quarrelling parents, cultural uprooting and the social and personal treatment of her body. She has also matured musically and now presents a sound with soul, folk and hip-hop influences that has developed with her band, consisting of Friedrich Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Alexander Mau and Leon Brames in collaboration with producer Tobias Siebert (Juli, Enno Bunger, Lyschko). She is completely vulnerable in "Referee", in which she processes memories of her arguing parents.Her single "Nearly To The End", "a wonderfully upbeat song that suggests that Amy Winehouse or the Alabama Shakes have a place in one or two of her playlists" (DIFFUS 2023) illuminates the beautiful sides of growing up: courage and loved ones who accompany you .

"In doing so, she lets her clever and, despite the depth of content, always wonderfully amusing thoughts flow into ultra-catchy folk-pop numbers that skillfully juggle with all kinds of set pieces and therefore sound immediately familiar, even though they are practically unreferenced, especially in this country."(Gästeliste.de 2023)