Signal from the Sticks

Red Bull Radio launched its first German-language show, and whoever made the call to set the debut episode in rural Franconia rather than Berlin or Hamburg understood something about what makes these things worth listening to. Deck 10 airs every third Tuesday of the month, hosted by Naima Limdighri and Keno Mescher, covering scenes and sounds from across Germany—interviews, cultural currents, the kind of music journalism that works better spoken than written.

For the premiere, Naima drove out into what she calls the sticks to sit at a kitchen table with underground rap legend LACA and newcomer Kuchenmann. The conversation went where that setting logically leads: isolation, limited infrastructure, what it means to develop a style when you’re not surrounded by the validation loop of a major city. There’s something clarifying about distance from the center. Local dialects, local rhythms, the quiet revival of German hip-hop culture far from the clubs that claim to define it.

Each episode also features a resident DJ presenting their favorite club track of the month—in this case Tereza, with whom I have a photo somewhere of us absolutely destroying burgers at the Burgeramt with Leni. Gernot from Modeselektor talked about the pivotal moment in his career, and Nick Höppner rounded things out. For a debut, it’s a strong hand. I’ll be listening next month.