Michael Ekow & May
Michael Ekow is a versatile, boundary-pushing artist who effortlessly blends indie, pop, hip-hop, R&B, and house into a distinctive sound of his own. With poetic lyricism layered over infectious beats, he transforms raw emotion into immersive musical experiences. Of Ghanaian heritage and raised in Germany and England, Ekow now calls the Netherlands home. His multicultural background deeply informs both his sound and storytelling, drawing inspiration from a wide range of artists, including Rod Stewart and Florence Welch.
Josylvio
Josylvio, a.k.a. Mr. Hella Cash, has been striding through the Dutch hip-hop scene for years. Driven by a raw street mentality and a razor-sharp style, the Dutch-Egyptian rapper released the hard-hitting Ma3seb in 2016. That proved to be just the beginning of a series of #1 albums. And that is not even mentioning the number of timeless hip-hop bangers: ‘Le7nesh’, ‘Westside’, ‘Ride or Die’, ‘Catch Up’, ‘Op Je Hoede’, ‘Oost West, Thuis Best’, and ‘Gimma’, to name just a few.
Frozemode
Frozemode sits at the forefront of the explosive global rock-meets-rap movement. Drawing energy from icons like The Prodigy and Rage Against The Machine to the cutting-edge sounds of Skepta and Playboi Carti, London trio I.V.GATLIN, Lisong, and Cho-Hollo bring a bold, distinctive style and sound to every performance. Dive into the sonic storm that’s igniting the alternative scene and introducing audiences to rap in ways they’ve never experienced before.
Fred Gata
Fred Gata sits somewhere between soul and hip-hop, warm tea and a smoky Sunday night. His voice pulls you in, his lyrics make you stay. Since casually bagging both the jury and audience prizes at Sound Track 2023, he’s been sharing stages with big names and giving the spotlight to new ones. No smoke machines or over-rehearsed moves, just presence, straight-up honesty, and the kind of energy that speaks for itself. Fred makes space for feeling, for dancing, and occasionally, for just the right amount of chaos.
Hiltje
Hiltje blends emotion, melody, and a healthy dose of weird into something strangely irresistible. He broke out with the jerseyclub banger Iedereen Is Onzeker - an anthem for overthinkers who still love a good dancefloor - and kept the momentum going with the genre-bending EPs Hillside and his latest, Brokken Piloot. Mixing raw trap with dreamy pop, Hiltje lays it all out: loneliness, growth, and trying to figure it all out (like the rest of us).
GLINTSAL
Singer-rapper Glints and DJ-producer Faisal have been creative partners for years. Together, they co-founded Abattoir Anvers a collective based in a former halal slaughterhouse in Antwerp and launched a namesake hip-hop show on Studio Brussel. Their musical chemistry is both undeniable and inevitable. Now performing as GLINTSAL, their debut album ‘GLINTSAL Vol.’ 1 blends Glints’ lyrical fire with Faisal’s genre-bending beats. After their explosive set at Eurosonic, HUMO wrote: “The festivals that skip this are crazy, incompetent, or just plain suicidal. Fuck yeah!” We’ve been listening. At Hit The City, their monster alliance comes to life.
Sad Banana
Ever wondered what the world looks like through the eyes of an overripe banana? Sad Banana crafts an existential fruit salad in the form of a music concert. They are blending punk, rap, and dadaism into a bittersweet cocktail of sound. Their lyrics teeter between bravado and breakdown, vulnerability and kitsch, politics and pastiche. It’s absurd, it’s emotional, it’s post-capitalist pulp with a pulse. Catch them live at Dynamo during Hit The City. Tears become beats if you squeeze them hard enough. Sad? Very. But also unmissable.
Luca St
Where house music blasts from the bathroom at 7AM on a Monday, where adrenaline is force-fed through kick and bass, and the gas bill hits harder than your hangover, that’s where you’ll find Luca St Feel the pressure rising? Good. With self-proclaimed “love songs, but my way,” Luca delivers raw emotion wrapped in relentless rhythm. Think spoken word caught in a rave, or as he puts it: “ritmisch gelul op een housebeat.” This is hip-hop reimagined. Catch him live at Hit The City, where love gets loud and lyrics hit like a strobe.
BUG
Trust us — there's no way you'll leave the Dynamo venue without breaking a sweat after a BUG show. Within minutes, the place transforms into a writhing mass of bodies or something that can only be described as pure chaos. BUG delivers an explosive blend of rap, punk, and pounding rave beats, topped off with raw, unfiltered lyrics. Think The Prodigy-level madness, but with a sharper, more contemporary edge. Add in choreographed elements and performance art, and it’s no surprise they became a crowd favorite at both Popronde and ESNS in recent editions.