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Wolnzach
A completely normal young adult sits across from you: Niklas was born in Mainburg in 2002 and grew up in Geisenfeld. He has lived in Niederlauterbach with his family for five years. He is currently completing an apprenticeship as an electrician in a Wolnzach company and “can’t even realize” that his music is clicked around 40,000 times a day. “And that from now on.” The surprise came just before Christmas when the head of a music label had written to him. He became aware of the 18-year-old after hearing one of Niklas’ songs on YouTube. He thought it was so good that he wanted to officially sign the track. Everything was done within a week – and “Hot Girl Bummer” went viral. “You have a certain expectation,” admits Niklas. But what happened next surprised him: The song was streamed up to 30,000 times on the busiest days. A stream counts as such on Spotify if a track is listened to for 30 seconds or longer. Everything below is not counted.
In the meantime, other songs have been signed to different labels and have already received between 200,000 and 300,000 views each. The next song, entitled “Spotlight”, is set to be out on March 19th. So far it has mainly been remixes (i.e. new versions of already published titles) that Niklas has produced and that can only be heard digitally via the various streaming platforms. But he has already tried his hand at his own songs – including his only German-language dance song “Jetzt und Hier”, which was created together with the Franconian dialect rapper “Sääftig” and the young DJ Fin Schaller. Before that, Niklas had already produced his own hip-hop songs, “but now I want to isolate myself from that,” he says. He himself describes the music he is now making as slap house – one of the numerous styles of house music and thus electronic music. This means that the titles are created on the computer with the help of special studio software. Niklas made his first attempts with the demo version of a corresponding app when he was just 14 years old. “I downloaded it for fun.” At first he lost interest, but then started again out of boredom. He dealt with it more intensively, bought a producer edition of the software, watched various tutorials and learned something new.
Niklas gets his ideas from the music that he likes to listen to most, “that’s all from the dance sector”. “When I like something or when I remember a good song, I try to make it a bit more modern,” he says. When the instrumental is ready, contact is made with the singer who sings his part on it. For example, Niklas is currently working with singer Meqq and TikToker Christian Gates from the USA. If everything fits, at the end there is still mastering and mixing. The relevant contacts are usually made in the various networks of the music scene. “Then someone knows someone else.”
The 18-year-old mainly pursues his hobby in the evenings after work and of course on the weekend, “then it feels like the whole day”. Niklas doesn’t need a lot of equipment to produce, with a laptop, boxes and software, the equipment in his room is “relatively manageable”. His family is also happy about the increasing number of clicks and his success – Niklas has three younger siblings – and his friends. “Most of them think it’s good, even if the music may not be their taste,” says Niklas.
For example, anyone who listens to their music on Spotify and especially where, can see Niklas in his artist account: Two thirds of his listeners belong to the age group between 23 and 34 years. The songs are streamed internationally: the top cities where Niklas has the most listeners are London, Hamburg, Munich and Sao Paulo. For the countries it is the USA and Germany. Niklas can understand that his tracks are mainly found in workout playlists: “The music is perfect for doing sports.”
With Spotify currently around 500,000 listeners per month and on the 92nd place of the most listened to dance producers in Germany – Niklas has already achieved his goals for this year. Now his main concern is to keep this level. It would be a dream for him to maybe even earn some real money with music in the long term. “I could imagine that.”W-Z CAKE
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