Mina Richman

In the organizer's words:

Honest. Queer. Self-determined.
It is the search for a perspective and 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 enabled her to make a contribution to the fight for freedom and human rights with her music. She sees combining activism with music as a duty and a necessity.

In her debut album, which was released on March 15, 2024 via the Ladies&Ladys label, Mina Richman confronts 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. Together with her band, Friedrich Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Alexander Mau and Leon Brames and producer Tobias Siebert (Juli, Enno Bunger), she has developed a versatile sound inspired by soul and blues classics and modern folk and hip-hop productions. Named album of the week by DLF Kultur and FluxFM, she played a Germany-wide headlining tour in March/April 24 and performed at Orange Blossom Special, Traumzeit and Fusion Festival, among others, before appearing outside Germany for the first time at Waves Vienna Festival and again at Reeperbahn Festival in September. She has also been nominated for the PopNRW Award in the "Outstanding Artist" category.