For its eleventh year, the Pop-Kultur Festival gives opportunity to experience and reflect on pop music with an expanded festival run from August 25-30. With though provoking talks, listening events, concerts and vibrant locations sprinkled all over the pulsing heart of the city, the Pop-Kultur program once again promises to educate, connect and inspire its visitors.
Pop-Kultur Talks
Rapper Ebow held a talk with Sara Geisler on August 25 | Photo by Aristidis Schnelzer
Pop-Kultur is more than music. This is the premise behind the Pop-Kultur Talks (25–26 August), which this year, for the first time, open the festival week as a standalone program. Detached from the live shows, they create a slower, more reflective entry point into the festival—an invitation to think before we dance. Here are some of the talks we are looking forward to:
Female Producer Prize: “Break the Loop” (DE) – In a country where only 2% of the Top-100 singles of 2023 were produced by FLINTA* artists, Sera Kalo, Melbeatz, and Finja Nierth join moderator Sherin Striewe to confront structural inequality in music production, share personal trajectories, and imagine new futures of visibility and empowerment.
The Artist’s Way: In Conversation with Sara Geisler and Ebow (DE) – Rapper Ebow and journalist Sara Geisler explore Julia Cameron’s cult classic The Artist’s Way as a toolkit for resilience, creative self-care, and artistic freedom, translating its rituals into the realities of contemporary cultural work.
Bring Your Own Table – Black Perspectives in the German Music Industry (EN) – Members of the Black Entertainment Network GSA (BEN-GSA) discuss how Black professionals and artists in Germany are not just asking for a seat but rather demand and create their own institutions, re-framing representation as lived empowerment rather than tokenising inclusion.
These are not passive lectures but sites of exchange—asking: How does pop intersect with sustainability, integrity, and fair pay? What role does counterculture play in times of upheaval? How can independent artists regain control over their work? Open to musicians, creatives, and fans alike, the Talks make clear that Pop-Kultur is not only about stages and spotlights but about cultivating the ecosystems that sustain them. The ethos is one of inclusion and exchange: Pop-Kultur talks, and it asks us to talk back.
Sonic Crossings
Pop-Kultur has always thrived on connection, this year Sonic Crossings makes that ethos even more explicit. Together with the music department of the Goethe-Institut and its partner institutions across Europe and beyond, the festival turns its focus toward the South Caucasus. Musicians from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia travel to Berlin for short residencies, bringing with them sonic textures shaped by migration, conflict, resilience, and innovation.
inherroom | Photo by Ruslan Nabiyev studio
From Tape Visitors’ shadowy electronic landscapes in Tbilisi, Georgia, to Nazrin Mammadova aka inherroom’s hazy bedroom pop out of Baku, Azerbaijan, from Symptom Error, the Yerevan-based duo threading post-industrial sound with folk resonances, to the indie storytelling of Georgian musician Vaqo—these artists blur borders while drawing on deeply local roots. Their work will unfold not only in concerts, but in listening sessions and talks, amplifying the stories and contexts that infuse their sound. The events take place across Wedding hotspots—silent green, migas listening bar, and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA (25–26 August)—before a concluding evening at Frannz Garten, Kulturbrauerei (29 August). Admission, in the spirit of openness, is free.
Complementing this is »8×15«, a Folkwang University showcase where eight emerging acts have exactly fifteen minutes to make their mark. These students—Anatole Buisson, LOEA, Leander, Malu Kami, Mare Amadou, Johanna Zeul, SCHÄFER and Tigrrez Punch—build a collective sound too unruly for categories. On 25 August at Callie’s, expect intensity over polish, experimentation over expectation.
Pop-Kultur Resilience
As the festival preparations for Pop-Kultur were anything but straightforward this year, it’s important to note that the festival industry over all continues to face many challenges and is still dealing with the incisional aftereffects of the pandemic. Yet, with the disintegration of the German red-yellow-green coalition in November 2024 and the subsequent rescheduling of the federal budget, this industry — as all social and cultural programs — was among those hit the hardest with funding cuts.
Photo by Aysan Lamby
The securing of alternative funds was a frantic and exhausting matter, yet Pop-Kultur was able to negotiate a new proposal. A feat attributed to Marie von der Heydt, Managing Director of the Musicboard Berlin, who successfully secured a only 10% cut in over all funding, in contrast to the initial -80%. Yet, these re-negotiations cost precious time and so the festival team had only half the amount of planning time than usual. Which makes the expansion and diversification of the festival program all the more impressive. Because rather than retreat, Pop-Kultur has taken this moment to adapt: spreading its program across six days instead of three, allowing more space, time and breath for exploration.
Pop-Kultur Live
This ethos of course finds expression in the festival’s line-up. And next to headliners like the multi-faceted rhythms of Los Bitchos, Austrian pop sensation Eli Preiss or Moabit’s own Apsilon, we are most excited about more up-and-coming Berlin based acts, especially. From the commissioned work of Fayim, titled “Kein Beileid” (“No Condolences”) to performances at the Pop-Up Berlin at Festsaal Kreuzberg by Neo-Soul singer Charlotte Colace or Abiba’s DJ set at the Betonhalle, Pop-Kultur further cultivates a climate of growth and blossoming. In the spirit of international crossings, we are also looking forward to the likes of Scottish singer-songwriter Becky Sikasa, South African DJ, singer and producer Muzi, and the UK-based genre-defying electronic trio Ebbb.
Pop-Kultur 2025 will take place from August 25-30. Get your tickets here.