A shortlist of German-speaking artists to watch out for in 2022!

Despite Covid, the German local market grew by 9% to 1.79 billion euros in revenue. Digital streaming accounted for 71.5% of the revenue share, for a total of 138 billion streams, a figure that has risen to 165 billion in 2021. Moreover, music consumption is very much local: when looking at the revenue generated in 2020 by the top 100 singles and top 100 LPs in the annual rankings, we find that more than 60% of the revenue comes from domestic artists. 

So to keep you up to date with the latest news on the Germany, Switzerland & Austria music scene, all from our Believe standpoint, our local teams have prepared a list of artists who stood out in 2021, to watch out for in 2022! 

At just 24 years old, Felicia Lu already has a great career behind her. The Salzburg (Austria) native rose to fame when she reached the final of RTL talent show Rising Star in 2014, piggybacking on the show’s exposure to release her first single, 'Cold Feet'.

After the singles 'Lost at Night' in 2015 and 'Hurt So Good' in 2016, her fourth single 'Red Zone' was released in 2017. She participated the same year in the national singing competition to represent Germany at the Eurovision, which showed her off to a wider audience. Though her first EP 'Untiltled' was released in 2019, she went on to release a string of singles after signing with the Global Rockstars label.

2021 was her big year: she released 9 singles - including ‘Oh No’, ‘I Love Me’ or ‘Pay' which streamed more than 1 million times each- and a new EP 'Relations'.

Felicia Lu starts the new year on a high note: in addition to the very pop track 'Dear Karma' released in January, the artist was invited by Apple Music to create a track in the Dolby Atmos Studios in Vienna. How exciting for her fans and overall sound lovers!

Behind this intriguing string of digits – look no further than Dresden's postal code – lies a collective of rappers and producers consisting of Gustav, Paul, Dani and Zachi. The four 20-something boys, who met in high school and were all orchestra musicians, formed 01099 in 2018.

During 2019, they release several parody tracks on hip-hop or electronic beats. Their sense of humor hit home with ‘Skyr’, their first real success. Taken from the self-titled EP, this cloud-rap track is both an absurd hymn to Icelandic yogurt and a kind taunt to the omnipresence of adlibs in modern hip-hop (skrrt skrrt!). In 2020, they took advantage of their first album “Morgensonne" to distance themselves a bit from parody for tracks where they show themselves more melancholic and serious.

The band signed with Groove Attack in 2021, while the song 'Frisch' ranked 36th in the German charts and accumulated millions of streams (currently 47 million listeners). The band achieved the same success with the singles ‘Durstlöscher’ and ‘Dies & Das’, ranked 17th and 19th respectively.

For 2022, the four friends may well surprise the German rap scene again; as they just proved it with ‘Jacke Zu’, their first single of the year.

With a first single released in the summer of 2020, Anaïs is a brand newcomer on the German music scene. However, the electronically-flavored alternative pop of this young artist from Hanover, who started writing her music during the 2020 lockdown, is appealing to an ever-growing audience.

After ‘My World So Blue’, she covered Ant Saunders's viral hit ‘Yellow Harts’ with Danish producer Dillistone, an electro-pop version gathering millions of streams on YouTube and Spotify. In a very different vein, she released the melancholic ballad ‘Man Man' shortly afterwards and again reached the million-listeners mark.

Anaïs has only been singing in English so far, even though the videos she posts on socials show her singing beautifully in German and French as well. Hoping to see at least one single release of hers in one of these languages in 2022, offering her the global exposure she fully deserves.

Fabian Wegerer is a 24-year-old Austrian artist who developed a passion for music at an early age. After taking singing, guitar and keyboard lessons, he formed his first band and began to make a name for himself by posting covers on YouTube.

In 2016, he released ‘Wenn jetzt für immer wär', a first song that led him to reach recognition from the audience, allowing him to tour in Germany and Austria. After moving to Germany, he released 'Besser wenn ich geh' in 2019, met with further success.

In 2021, he joined the label To The Moon Records created by another young sensation of the German pop scene, his friend Vincent Weiss, and surrounded himself with the trendy duo of producers Achtabahn, a team with several gold records to their credit.

A new recipe turning to be a spicy success for the artist: Fabian was named "Newcomer of the Week" by Amazon and has been a permanent guest on Spotify's editorial lists in Germany. With his 2021 single ‘Wenn ich von Liebe rede’ reaching 3.5 million streams, he's definitely one of the young German-speaking pop names to watch out for in 2022.

Don’t be fooled: even if his name reminds of his Italian roots, Mario Novembre was born and raised in Stuttgart, where he became known at a very young age through social networks, building up a huge fan base in less than a few years: 1.5 million Instagram followers and 5.2 million TikTok subscribers follow his daily posts.

Mario released his first song in 2016 when he was only 16 years old, and he continued to release singles until his popular first album 'Stay' in 2018. His success as an influencer opened him new doors: in 2019, he appeared in the film “Misfit” and then in 2020, he was one of the main roles in the web series “Das Internat”, for which he also signed the theme with his track '10 von 10'.

2021 was clearly his breakthrough year: his pop single 'Allein Sein' went viral on TikTok, ranking 9th in the German charts and almost 28 million streams. The success was repeated for the following single 'Lautlos'. The song, using the melody of 2003 hit ‘Dragostea Din Tei’ from Moldovian Eurodance group O-Zone, exceeded 14 million streams and ranked 15th in the German charts.

He also got his own TV show 'Mario Novembre - Auch das noch!' on the Joyn channel and signed the theme of the Amazon exclusive series 'Sex Zimmer, Küche, Bad'. Let's wish Mario the same success for his next single, 'Fucked Up', which will be released in February 2022.

Always sporting a red cap or bonnet – Rote Mütze in German, hence her nickname – Rote Mütze Raphi is a 19-year-old rapper from the Koblenz region who started producing her own sounds by her own account and writing lyrics at the age of 14 to better express her feelings.

By 2019, she began posting her freestyles on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Her eye-catching videos filmed in a car earned her the attention of various online media specializing in hip-hop which shared her work, as well as duo of producers Achtabahn (also working for Fabian Wegerer as aforementioned). Together they created 'C'est la vie', an instant pop-trap hit that has now reached 10 million streams.

Three other singles combining hip-hop, house and pop followed in 2020 and confirmed the public's enthusiasm for Raphi, her single ‘Heute’ quickly reaching one million streams.

2021 was a great year for the artist: she laid down her flow on the remix of the hit 'Love & Courvoisier' by the renowned reggae-dancehall group Seeed, was awarded Newcomer of the year at the New Music Award and her electro-pop single ‘Tag Ein Tag Aus’, with the singer Aylo, passed the 7 million streams mark. Keep the name Rote Mütze Raphi in mind, because you might hear a lot about her in 2022.

It's hard to sum up the incredible career of this 33-year-old rapper from Berlin in a few lines. Ufo361 - a combination of his first name Ufuk and the postal code district of Kreutzfeld - arrived in the hip-hop scene thanks to his friend Said, rapper and founder of the Hoodrich label.

Together with producer KD-Supier, they formed the trio Bellini Boyz and released a first EP in 2012. Ufo361 then released his first solo EP the same year. In 2014, Ufo361 released 'Ihr seid nicht allein', a debut album marking the end of his collaboration with Hoodrich. The rapper then created his structure Stay High to remain independent.

With the album "808" reaching the first place of the German and Austrian charts in April 2018, Ufo61 settled into his success and retaliated in November of the same year, releasing the album "VVS", featuring Quavo from American rap group Migos) ranking second in the German charts.

In 2019, Ufo361 topped the charts again with his album “Wave”. Same thing in 2020 with the album “Rich Rich” released in April, then “Nur für Dich” released in October, on an exclusive production by Berlin-based producer Sonus030.

In 2021, his albums “Stay High” and “Destroy All Copies” respectively ranked first and second in the charts. Needless to say, Ufo361 has succeeded in becoming a major name in German trap music in just a few years, and his 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify are there to prove it. His latest single, the melancholic song ‘Allein Allein’ was already streamed over 11 million times, showing that this Kreutzfeld rapper is set up for amazing coverage of his music also in 2022... as it should be!