germany MIKA HEGGEMANN ENGINEERING EMOTION, BUILDING UP UNFORGETTABLE NIGHTS
There’s something quietly radical about Mika Heggemann. In a city overflowing with DJs chasing their moment, he’s busy building his own world from the ground up. His story begins far from Berlin’s ware- houses, deep in Germany’s industrial heart, where he learned precision before passion. Those years of structure and repetition, as a clerk, an assistant, a tinkerer in band studios, became the unlikely foun- dation of his artistry. Today, that same discipline fuels his rise as one of Europe’s most self-made and self-defined talents, a name shaping the pulse of a movement rather than just following one.
At the center of it all is Nu Trance, not a revival, but a rebellion. Mika’s sound is emotional, high-speed, and fearless, colliding trance’s euphoria with techno’s edge and hard house’s swagger. It’s music that hits you in the chest before it reaches your head. “Nu Trance” isn’t just about tempo or melody; it’s an attitude, raw, expressive, and unafraid of color in a scene that often worships grayscale. Behind the decks, he’s not mixing tracks, he’s engineering moments, turning chaos into connection, and crafting that fleeting, perfect instant where the crowd moves as one organism.
But Mika’s mission doesn’t end when the lights come on. Through Polyamor Berlin, his label and collec- tive, and the Berlin Dance Music Event (BDME), he’s helping shape the next chapter of the city’s un- derground. In this space, creativity, collaboration, and independence collide. It’s not just about music; it’s about culture-building, about designing new frameworks for artists to grow without compromise. In a world built on noise and momentum, Mika is doing something more complex: he’s building meaning. Mika´s story is one of grit. Long before the festival stages and sold-out nights, he was clocking hours in the Bavaria industrial belt, apprenticing as a clerk and learning how to work before learning how to dream. That discipline, he says, became the invisible backbone of everything he does now.
“It always takes longer than you hope or plan. Es- pecially when no one around you has any connec- tion to the music industry, you have to do almost the opposite of what your close environment advi- ses you to do. I learned that you can’t force things; they happen naturally if you keep going.”
For Mika, there was no cinematic moment of reve- lation, only persistence.
“It wasn’t one single moment when I realized music was my life’s work; it was a series of small moments that kept pushing me forward. But if I had to pick one, it was when I received funding for the Berlin Dance Music Event and was able to start working independently. That’s when I truly understood: this is what I’m meant to do.”
That patient climb also explains his sound, which is layered, self-taught, and deeply personal. Be- fore finding his voice, Mika spent nearly a decade experimenting across genres, building a language of rhythm and emotion one track at a time.
“I’ve always been someone who can identify with many genres. Producing all kinds of styles, from deep house to trap to band music, helped me un- derstand where I truly belong.”
That restless curiosity shaped the hybrid textu- res that now define Nu Trance.
“Every genre works differently and creates a diffe- rent kind of emotion. My roots lie in nu metal bands like Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. Distorted voices, dirty synths, melodic hooks, all of that finds its way into my music now.”
But no city tested and transformed him like Ber- lin. Arriving alone, with no safety net, he found both chaos and clarity.
“Moving to Berlin on my own was honestly scary. It’s an overwhelming city. When you leave everything behind to start a new path, there’s always fear and uncertainty involved.”
Instead of chasing the excess, he grounded him- self in structure, the same discipline that built his foundation years earlier.
“Even though I’ve never really been into the af- ter-hours side of things. I don’t do drugs; I’d rather wake up early and get back to work. Being around that energy taught me a lot. Berlin can give you everything, but it can also consume you if you’re not grounded. It’s a city of extremes, and finding my own balance within that chaos helped define who I am.”
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AUTHOR: SERGIO NIÑO PHOTOGRAPHY: HOAN NYGUEN
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