Taking the Night with the Black British Starlings

Interview Nicole Rayner

Photography Philip Borges

Descending upon club MAAYA on the night of the Unemployees’ Young Eman & TeeboFG show felt like lining up for Berlin Fashion Week. I didn’t dress my best today, and, unsurprisingly, it feels like people are noticing. Like all of Unemployees’ events, this is as much of a style expo as it is a concert: fur boots, tight Japanese denim, Rick Owens, and the brand’s SHEIN counterfeits as most of the crowd is too young to have the budget for the real deal). They looked the part, and they all looked good playing it. Who am I to judge?

Inside, the room is foggy. The stage is low. A barricade of bodies has already formed in the first row, bouncing to the bass-heavy music booming over the sound system. They’re playing “23” by Miley Cyrus. Graphics flash across the screen as if they were plucked straight from Instagram Reels: luxury brand logos altered to resemble the DJ’s stage name, symbols picked up from the past decade of memes, Call of Duty gameplay montages rendered in 260p. 2016 really is back, isn’t it?

The night’s opening sets consisted of a tasting platter from the German Underground – a Nettspend-esque figure with rapunzel hair called mikey cyc, a cyborg voice attached to a comic book villain named bäst (whose on stage entourage treated crowdwork like an overtime job), and a hedi boy named Carl who I’m sure would be at Phantom Bar on any other Friday night. The last one kinda looked like Mr Party Berlin, and his sound was a true marriage of 2010s EDM à la David Guetta and 2026 rap. These openers put in a hard shift; at first, the crowd didn’t want to budge, but by the end of their opening hour, the pit bubbled over with so much fervor that by the time the stage was empty, they’d burned through all the energy in the room. The floor was cavernous, haunted by bodies on the sidelines, waiting for a new beat to signal them to strike again. The stage was a black hole, waiting to be filled. It was eerily calm, eerily quiet. 

In all honesty, I didn’t know all that much about Young Eman and TeeboFG before being invited to their show. Based on their online presence alone, there isn’t much to know. Both were born and raised in the UK. Both of their careers have been short and sweet, only publicly beginning their projects in the past couple of years while being met with rapid acclaim within the UK underground scene. Both have had viral moments: the videos for Teebo’s “Fame Is A Virtue Freestyle” and Eman’s “popstar in da bits” did numbers across platforms late last year. Beyond these details, both remain fairly elusive. Perhaps Young Eman and TeeboFG prefer to let their respective discographies speak for themselves. 

At least until now, that is. The evening before their Berlin show, I was lucky enough to sit down for some quick conversations with both Teebo and Eman. 

I’m Teebo. I make music. I don’t know how to describe my music… It’s energetic, it gives you a lot of emotions. I want to say a lot with my music. 

What are your biggest inspirations, inside OR outside of your music?

Probably the people around me. My parents, my boys, everyone. Everyone’s their own individual person, and that has made me understand my value, and my person. 

What are 3 songs you’ve had on repeat in your playlist recently?

“Rival Dealer” by Burial, my song called “LIL T”, and probably Rodeo by Travis Scott. Not a song – I know – but the whole album I’ve had on repeat. I always come back to it. It’s one of my favourite albums of all time. 

Have you played much outside of the UK before?

I haven’t. Only New York. This’ll be my first European show.

How was New York?

Cold as hell. I hate the cold. But it was good. Linked up with a lot of different people down there.

What’s your impression of Berlin so far?

I like Berlin. It’s not cold, and it’s nice. Outside is aesthetically pleasing. It’s got some good looks to it. It’s been good, the people have been nice. 

Returning from your post-opener smoke break, you’d be in your right mind if you thought that you might’ve somehow stumbled into the wrong show or into an alternate universe entirely. In the midst of the dark, a figure armed with a guitar took the stage with hair coating its face like Samara from The Ring. A groaning riff began to fill the space, swelling heavier by the second. Just as it was about to burst, TeeboFG hit the stage with a scream.

It’s hard to articulate the atmosphere Teebo created. Was it a seance? A ceremony? A haunted house? Perhaps all of the above. With every song that played, Teebo became more of a cult leader than a mere performer, conducting the crowd every leap and move. The pit clung to him, throwing themselves on top of each other to be closer to the stage, to his body. 

What blew me away the most about Teebo’s set was the way his songs were rebuilt to suit the stage. On the original tracks, when only the music can speak for itself, Teebo already provides a sound that stands out within the underground; elevated, more mature, more meticulous, in both its lyricism and construction. When adapted for performance, these tracks took on a completely different life. With the live guitar and Teebo’s ability to contort his voice into ghoulish shapes, each song sounded even more haunting and visceral than before. “Wesh” turned into a spell-like chant, and “You & Me”’s eerie riff turned it into something out of a horror movie – even when the teenaged German boy in the front row who knew every single word took over the mic. Perhaps Teebo’s set was not a haunted house, but instead a ride on a ghost train; sharp turns, steep drops, whiplash, but never without immaculate control. Teebo seemed to have the whole audience under his control, and they stayed possessed long after he exited the stage. 

What are you hoping fans will take from your show tomorrow?

Happiness, at most. I don’t really care for them to know who I am, what I be, or what I look like; I just want them to say, “Wow, that person was insane.” A stamped memory attached to it, you know what I’m saying? I’m here to influence. I don’t want to try to be big; I just want to influence. I describe myself as a person that does what he wants. I feel like a lot of people are too scared to do that. Doing what I want has gotten me to Berlin, so it’s working out.

What is the most important factor for you when you hit a stage?

Feeling a connection. The connection is something that has to be natural. You can’t force a connection. You can’t buy a connection. As long as I can build a connection with the crowd, whether it’s them making noise, me interacting with them – whatever – that’s what I want out of this.

Tell me something about you that you think would surprise people.

I didn’t want to be a rapper.

What did you want to be?

I wanted to be a footballer. I stumbled upon rap by accident. Dropped some songs, people liked them. Then this happened.

What’s your team?

Manchester United. Best team ever in the world. Regardless of how shit they’ve been recently, best team ever. 

I’m Arsenal. 

My dad tried to make me be an Arsenal fan, but one day I said, “Nah. I want to be a Man U fan.” 

Anything but City.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Them ones… yeah.

I’m Young Eman, I’m 21, and I make music. I’m self-produced, I self-record, I self-engineer… I self-everything. I’ve been doing it for 10 years now. I make music to help people.

What are your biggest inspirations, inside OR outside of your music?

In my life, I look up to my grandma. She’s just a really nice person, you feel me? She’s a helper. She helps a lot of people. Her whole life she’s been helping people. I look up to my sister, also. I think she’s the biggest rockstar ever. She just lives exactly the way she wants to live. I look up to all my family members. I feel like I can take aspects from each of them and appreciate them.

Within music, prior to knowing about rap, I was listening to grime and pop, through having older siblings. I have two siblings – a brother and a sister – and I’m the youngest one. When I first tapped into pop, I thought it was amazing. Eventually, I got introduced to Travis Scott, and from the day I first heard him until now, he’s been such a big influence for me. Him, Kanye, and then other artists like Imogen Heap and Bjork.

What’s your favourite Bjork song?

Ooh. Either “Crystalline” – the live version – or “It’s Not Up To You.” 

Good choices. I’m a huge Bjork fan.

What about you?

Maybe “Pagan Poetry”? 

Oooh, yeah.

While we’re on this topic, what are 3 songs you’ve had on repeat in your playlist recently?

In no particular order: “Manhattan Is A Haunted City” by Vatican Shadow, “It’s Not Up To You” by Bjork, and an unreleased song of mine called “Intoxication”.

How has Germany treated you so far?

I like it. It feels like a movie. Every time I go to a different country, it looks like I’m in a movie. I’m seeing all the buildings, I’m seeing the graffiti and shit, I’m seeing how everything’s set up, and I’m like, “Yo, this is insane.”

Have you played many shows outside of the UK?

Not many. In January, I played in Paris. In February, I played in New York. Then I went out to Sweden, but I didn’t play there. Got my show in Berlin tomorrow. Very exciting. And I have a show in Poland in a couple weeks. These are my first ones. 

Once the air returned to the room after Teebo’s set, it seemed as though the crowd only gave itself a moment to take a deep breath and hold it again. Every body hovering around the stage was jittery with anticipation. The lights dimmed and the room seemed to stand still, all eyes glued on the corner of the stage, frozen for just a moment too long before Young Eman’s fashionably late arrival. 

If Teebo’s set was the ghost train, Eman’s set was the carnival. With sensory overload visuals and a bumper car moshpit, you could tell under Eman’s aura-soaked demeanor how much fun he was having from the moment he took the stage. He was practically bursting out his body; chanting Berlin in a thick Northern accent, separating every verse with a scream, frantically filling every corner of the space, and basking in the panopticon of phone screens that surrounded him every time he stood on the lip of the stage. 

Perhaps abetted by the crowd’s need to expel all the energy left in their bodies, the undeniable earworm quality of Eman’s discography quickly elevated the room into something that felt more like a house party than a concert. The moshpit took on a new life where every kid took to the center to bust a move and bask in their own fifteen seconds of fame before the beat dropped and the human wave engulfed the center again. Someone jumped on the stage and flung themself straight back off of it, not giving the crowd a moment to prepare to catch them, but they didn’t seem to care. When Eman played “ion trust”, heads bounced so persistently you’d think the floor was elastic. The real tsunami came during “popstar in da bits.” It was as if all the chaos prior was simply just the calm before the storm. Eman pulled a kid on stage to dance with him before turning him around and shoving him full force back into the crowd. Drinks flew, phone flashlights looked like a lightning show, and the riser I was standing on off to the side was shaking so violently I thought it might snap. When the song played out, he stood front and center, basking in the sweaty, phone-yielding hands reaching towards him from all sides as if he was royalty. Then he left. The floor lights rose, and we were all thrust back into the real world.

What do you want people to take from your shows? When people leave the venue at the end of the night, how are you hoping they’re feeling?

Obviously they went to this event, but within this event, I want them to feel like they went to a completely different event that’s entirely my own. I want to take them out of the things they have to care about in life – their problems in life. I just want them to feel like they can forget everything and enjoy the moment. Like it’s a whole new world when I lay my set down. “Oh, now I’m in Eman’s world”, “Oh, I might’ve liked this guy’s music”, or maybe “I didn’t even know him, but now I love his music”. That’s all I want. I want to leave an impact and make sure everyone has an amazing time.

What thoughts and motivations do you carry with you when you hit the stage?

I just want to let go. The same thing I want them to do is what I want to do on stage. Just forgetting about everything else and falling in love with being in the moment. 

Last question, tell us something that you think it would surprise people to know about you.

Ooh, I LOVE horses. That’s the best animal there is. I want two horses: a black one and a white one. 

Have you even been horseriding?

I’ve never ridden a horse. But I’ve got this–

(He shows me a huge horse tattoo on his torso.)

Dedicated horse lover.

Exactly. I don’t know… horses… just… (sigh). I think they’re insane. Beautiful creatures. 

I think it’s easy to become disillusioned by the amount of musical output that exists online today within the attention economy – especially when nostalgia-bait and trend hopping seem to dictate virality in 2026. Even I’ve fallen victim to ‘next up’ desensitization, finding myself skeptical every time a new artist blows up. And, yeah, I won’t pretend there isn’t a lot of slop, mediocrity, and mimicry out there. But there are also a lot of gems. Young Eman and TeeboFG are two of those diamonds in the rough. If you ever get the chance to see one or both of them live, take it. Say you were there first, and brag about it loudly.