Rebecca Thomalla aka BECKS has stopped worrying about what other people say. For too long, the twenty-something has suffered from being supposedly different from the norm. Until she took that very supposed otherness - and turned it into her strongest weapon. With this attitude, BECKS has now not only captivated over 770k followers:inside on TikTok, but also recorded over four million cross-platform streams with her first three singles "Chemie", "Avatar" and "Blutmond" after only a short time.

BECKS' path to self-discovery is through TikTok: In early 2020, she begins posting Acting and Lipsync performances on the video platform. Increasingly, her community wants her to post her own music as well. One night - as is often the case, she can't sleep and is rolling thoughts around in her head - she writes a song called "Chemistry". She decides to upload a snippet to TikTok, which is a big step in two ways. Because first, after years of writing songs in private, she dares to share her music publicly for the first time - and second, the song is tantamount to her coming out. "What's so wrong with loving a woman instead of a man / Do I hurt you with it, if you knew how often I've suffered because of it" - in "Chemie" BECKS describes her sometimes painful path of self-discovery. And she does it in a captivatingly good way: The voice - incredibly casual, almost bored. The beat - dust-dry, funky. The lyrics are the opposite of dry as dust and bored, but in a disarmingly honest way BECKS' autobiographical experience.

The reactions on the web show just how many people she sings from the heart: The very first snippet to "Chemie" goes viral with over 9,000 creations. "Before I was outed, I never knew exactly: why, why, why?" she reports. "Why me? Why am I attracted to women and not someone else? I suffered a lot from it, which has a lot to do with growing up in a small town where everyone talks about everyone else." In the meantime, BECKS has moved from Düren to Berlin, where she feels completely accepted. And in other respects, too, she has completely come into her own: "I'm no longer interested in what others think. I try something new every day, even with my appearance. I actually have short hair and usually dress masculine, simply because I like it. But sometimes I have days when I put on a wig and a dress," says BECKS.

It's statements like these that make BECKS a trailblazer for gender identity, LGBTQ+ and queer empowerment. She is a mouthpiece for her generation, taking the issues to the world with optimism. BECKS is aware of the responsibility that comes with the role - and she embraces it: "I get messages every day from people who write to me: 'I wasn't feeling so well, then I watched your videos and afterwards I felt much better', or: 'When you were live, you completely distracted me from what was happening with me'. In those moments, I think: Yes, it's the right decision to do what I think is right."

The queer program content of c/o pop is supported by: Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft Lesben in NRW, Queeres Netzwerk NRW and the Ministry for Children, Youth, Family, Equality, Flight and Integration of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The concert is part of the funding project "c/o pop 2023 musichubgermany" and is supported by the Initiative Musik gemeinnützige Projektgesellschaft GmbH with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.