»AFRO x POP Unplugged« ・ Pop-Kultur Festival 2026

August 24–30, 2026 | silent green Kulturquartier, Festsaal Kreuzberg, Kulturbrauerei, Pierre Boulez Saal, and more 

Live concerts, experimental music formats, talks, and more. You can look forward to international and local artists, world premieres, and music in all its forms—from large stages to intimate club shows.

“AFRO x POP” is a platform for contemporary African music and culture with a focus on Berlin’s Afro-diasporic community. It creates spaces for artistic expression, exchange, and visibility—beyond clichéd images. With “AFRO x POP Unplugged,” an intimate stage format will take shape as part of the 2026 Pop-Kultur Festival, just as it did last year: raw, acoustic, and immediate. “Unplugged” here means stripping things down to the essentials—music, voice, instrument, expression. No show, no filters, just presence and authenticity. This year’s focus is on three established artists whose musical styles are as distinctive as they are stylistically open. Curated by Pamela Owusu-Brenyah, they will each present their songs in a concentrated form during approximately 30-minute acoustic sets. Following each concert, the musician mari.ama speaks with the artists about their work, musical influences, and the conditions of artistic practice as they navigate local scenes and global networks. The audience sits on Senegalese mats arranged around the stage. Sobolo, a traditional West African drink, rounds out the sensory experience. With her voice, Milaa moves effortlessly between soul, R&B, alternative, and atmospheric pop. She gained widespread attention in 2024 with “Feel It,” her collaboration with Cupidon, which has been streamed millions of times and used hundreds of thousands of times on TikTok. But instead of relying on that viral success, she consistently develops her own artistic voice: warm, intimate, and emotional, yet internationally oriented and unmistakable. The Kenyan-New Zealand musician Muroki blends indie pop, soul, reggae, and laid-back grooves into a sound that’s as effortless as it is distinctive. Following successes in New Zealand and Australia, he has also made a name for himself in Europe in recent years—both as a solo artist and alongside acts such as BENEE, LEISURE, and Six60. With his debut album *Amber Skies*, released in early 2026, he consistently continues on his genre-defying and deeply personal path. Baaba J is one of Ghana’s most exciting independent voices. Blending Afro-indie, folk, and alternative pop, he creates songs that explore questions of identity, belonging, and self-determination. Baaba sings primarily in Ga and weaves personal stories with social issues such as women’s and queer rights. The result is music that is deeply rooted in its local context while simultaneously reaching far beyond it.