It began as it had to begin: Juno030 was born in Kreuzberg at the turn of the millennium, when Aggro Berlin and Royal Bunker were revamping German rap. Growing up with the young rap generation between kerbs and skylines, Juno was initially inspired by poetry, then by online rap formats such as VBT. She was still at school and struggling with growing up when she transformed her first lyrics and beats into tracks. But she had time on her side. With the rise of social media and the emergence of major streaming providers, she found a space where she could reach an audience that felt the same way she did with her self-made music videos for tracks like ‘Stoned oder so’ and ‘Rede Nicht’. Fed up with the frippery of screwed-up media hype and alienated by absurdly romanticised notions of urban life, the rapper brings authenticity back to German-language rap music with her EP ‘Sirenen’ (2024) and observations of contemporary life such as “Teppich” and her current single ‘Schwebebahn’. And she has no need to rehash the garish neighbourhood kitsch of the 2000s in any crassly sexualised form, instead conveying the feeling of life in the status quo in a raw, authentic and candid way.