1UP: Simona + Dakota Sluiten & more

1UP is the last Simplon UP event of the academic year. In this special edition you can enjoy 6 artists from Groningen and the rest of the Netherlands. This year’s theme is strawberry, so make sure to arrive dressed in red and enjoy the free strawberry cocktails!

The evening will be kicked off by the Latvian singer-songwriter Simona. She combines airy R&B with experimental hip-hop beats en catchy pop melodies. Last year she released her first EP. Thanks to more than 200,000 streams she already perfomed in Germany and ESNS. This year she released a new collection of tracks, Purple Clouds, with songs about falling in love, mutual understanding, attraction and astrophysics.

Up next is the Spanish artist Dakota Sluiten. They started making music on an iPone during long-distance train rides. Expect a DIY mix of synthpop, dreampop and electropop with dark undertones. Think 80s electronic music and acts like Grimes or Ela Minus; arpeggiated synths, vocals drowning in reverb and groovy rhythms mixed with psychedelic and ambient sounds.

de Best (formerly popprophet) is a rapper, producer and visual artist from Groningen who was raised in poverty. In his music he talks in a humorous way about hunger and the foodbank, his fear of taxes and suspiciously large amounts of money in Lidl bags. With his expressive performances and radical creativity he celebrates the beauty and power he created as the ‘professional broke boy’. On his newest album, Klassenstrijd, he uses neglected symbols of poverty as eye-catching artistic statements. 

Graaflandgraaf is an alternative rockband with hints of punk, rap, sweet sounds and a lot of noise. In their lyrics they address a large number of wry subjects like mental health, exploitation, violence and other fun topics with a large pinch of dark humor. A performance that will make people both laugh and cry. Often loud, sometimes dreamy, but alway unnecessarily existensial. Expect a liveshow where the whole crowd will be dancing.

Also performing this night will be two wonderful DJs, DJ Emmz and DJ Daddy Long Dick. They will make sure that people will be dancing in the café between and after the shows. DJ Emmz plays everything from acid to electro, nu-disco and trance, while DJ Daddy Long Dick is known for her interesting mix of ballroom, kuduro baily funk and more.