2012
“Let me tell you something that I can’t ignore.” Dena from the Blocks starts up the MPC and raps like it’s 1991. You might have heard Dena’s voice before from one of her features on both of the Whitest Boy Alive albums. On her own productions though, the Bulgarian-born and raised new-berliner goes back in back time, turns up the beats. Mixing classic house music elements with old school raps she plays and breaks with the clichés of those genres with one final goal: cash, diamond rings, swimming pools. Dena was already stirring up this years SXSW Festival, we’re glad to get down with her at our own block party!

2018
When the likeable Berlin-born Bulgarian Denitza Todorova made her debut at Torstraßen Festival in 2012, things were just beginning to heat up for her. “Cash, Diamond Rings, Swimming Pools” was fast on the path from insider tip to summer hit, and it wasn’t long before Der Spiegel and The Guardian caught wind. An EP on the Paris label Kitsuné and shows with Das Racist, Icona Pop and The Whitest Boy Alive followed. Despite all the hype, DENA has remained true to herself and to her approachability, balancing a role as pop star with the true Dena from next door. Her tracks, which are inspired by the R’n’B sound of the 90s, center on the themes of connectivity or divisiveness, but always in the context of personal moments: “I like you but I’m thinking about somebody else”; “Something’s telling me that you’re playing games”; “I know we can be more than just imaginary friends.” DENA’s topoi are friendship, trust, love, and disappointment, all of which she navigates between the related coordinates of melancholy and partytime via disarmingly honest language. Meanwhile, DENA’s sound has evolved from the central MPC sampler towards a live band aesthetic. Her second album, which has been made with the help of collaborators both old and new, is slated for release in 2018 via Berlin’s Mansions & Millions. First stop: this year’s Torstraßen Festival. Boom!

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