Once again, we have the pleasure of covering one of Berlin’s festival gems: XJAZZ!. This year, the festival returns for a bold new edition, running from May 14 to 18 at Festsaal Kreuzberg and surrounding venues. With a finger always on the pulse of boundary-pushing sound and community-driven energy, XJAZZ! 2025 promises to be a week-long celebration of everything that makes Berlin’s music scene so electrifying — and so globally relevant.
Jazz musician and composer Haggai Cohen-Milo and rapper and poet Stimulus might come from different musical worlds, but together they’ve built something entirely original. In "Gravitations", they channel Mahler, Verdi, and Debussy into a genre-defying project about death, devotion, and reinvention. Anna Grubauer met the duo to talk about how it all came together.