Hats off to Popcamp for their selection of artists appearing this year at Stadtgarten. Two completely different bands and styles, yet both CECI and Yetundey had the songs, stage presence and musical quality to appeal to the same audience.
It seems like the Stadtgarten Summer Season at Alter Zoll has only just begun – and here we are already hurtling towards the seasons end next weekend. In this, the penultimate weekend of free concerts down by the Rhine, the weather was already starting to threaten the plans of Bonn’s Kulturamt and it’s Rock & Pop Organizer Hans-Joachim Over. Four bands were planned for Friday’s Ladies Night presented by Create Music NRW and MusicNRWwomen. Then came the storm… and afterwards only Kira managed a full set. Laoura had to finish early and Angelic in Jeans didn’t get to play at all. A great pity and hopefully there will be a chance to put that right next year.
Saturday’s weather also looked rather bleak initially, but in the end PopCamp got to introduce it’s chosen band’s this year, and two excellent, although totally different from each other, bands they were too.
CECI (Cecelia Ribbeck) resides under the German indie-pop artist music category although actually she sings in english. When I ask about her inspirations I get the surprising answer “Dr Seuss” the Childrens book writer and cartoonist. Well I did ask! Before performing as CECI, she released lo-fi music under the alias“c e c e l i e.” before early success as a producer helped her build a career in music and develop her own artist project CECI which we now see before us. An excellent pop band they are too. A classic four-piece singer, guitar, keys and bass with the extra plus of being able to switch one of these to keyboards. An extra extra plus I notice too is the presence of Susi Lotter on bass. The last time I saw Susi playing was with Alma Naidu’s band at the Dottendorfer Jazznacht. Susi herself also has a fine jazz quartett of her own (check out YouTube).
If the inspiration is Cat in the Hat the songs themselves are certainly not not childrens rhymes. They are kept simple and uncluttered as all good pop music should be. Her smooth voice connects well with the audience and the songs themselves have more of an edge than the polished self-produced ones I’ve since checked out online. They are very much pop song length though and I did feel that in a live setting the songs could be stretched out longer to give the band more room for solo breaks. That’s just a small criticism though as I had the feeling they were musically capable of more. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to hearing CECI’s next album release which is planned for next January. Certainly a bright musical prospect from Augsburg.
Multilingual Electro-Rap? Not usually my thing, but Michael Teilkemeier from Deutscher Musikrat said I might be pleasantly surprised by Yetundey, and he was right indeed. Berlin based with Nigerian and French roots, Yetundey sings in German, English, and French, occasionally mixing in pidgin English and Yoruba (West African), and draws on rap, pop, electro, trap, Afropop, R&B, and Eurodance. Beyond performing, she’s also a songwriter, producer, music video director, and dancer. Which makes her a busy bee indeed, and sure enough she buzzes around the stage with a seemingly boundless amount of energy.
A large part of Yerundey’s music is upbeat upbeat it has too a flip-side that reveals a more vulnerable, reflective nature. Her latest album released at the end of 2025 is titled ‘F60.30’ which refers to the ICD-10 diagnostic code for emotionally unstable personality disorder. The album is a framework to musically explore emotional instability. It’s a subject she touches on during the concert and in fact she even asks at one point if anyone in the audience is going through a tought time emotionally right now.
Despite the concert itself being a danceable upbeat affair Yerundey herself has an electric air of emotion about her onstage presence. When she bends to her knees and plays her guitar/keyboard on the stage floor she almost seems to leave the audience and band completely out of her mind and focus just on the instrument in front of her. It’s a brief immersion though as, minutes later, she’s buzzing around the stage again, jumping and dancing with a seemingly boundless energy. There’s plenty of humour and self irony in her set to ensure that it’s positive vibes that the audience take home with them at 10 pm.
WHAT IS POPCAMP?
PopCamp is a high-level development program for emerging artists. Each year, five artists are accepted into the program and receive a year of coaching from top-tier instructors from the music industry. This supports them on their path to becoming professional musicians and helps them expand their network within the music business.
Together with selected instructors—who may also be requested by the participating acts—the participants take part in two intensive work phases during which they focus on their musical development and receive support in areas such as image, songwriting and production, performance, music law, social media, and much more. At the end of the second work phase, they have the opportunity to showcase their work to the public at an event in Berlin.
During a third phase, the artists can carry out their own projects and receive financial and creative support from the German Music Council’s PopCamp.