Mina Richman

In the organizer's words:

Honest. Queer. Self-determined.
It is the search for a purpose, a perspective and a direction in life that drove the 25-year-old German-Iranian Mina Richman to music at an early age. Born in Berlin but raised in the small town of Bad Salzuflen, she commutes between worlds and discovers treasures such as Joan As Police Woman 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 famous around the world overnight. Combining the musical with the social has always been important to her. The debut album, which is scheduled for March 2024, also follows this credo and shows Mina Richman as a songwriter without competition. 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 is already quite a power woman" (WDR5).

In her debut album, which will be released in March 2024 on the Ladies&Ladys label, Mina Richman faces up to growing up. With great honesty, she returns to her childhood and deals with quarrelling parents, cultural uprooting and the social as well as 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 her current single "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) highlights the beautiful side of growing up: courage and loved ones who accompany you.