Mr. Polska Turns Hard Techno Toward Live Performance

Above image credit: Tim van den Broek

Mr. Polska is launching a new live act built for techno and hard dance stages, but the more interesting part is what he is refusing to become. This is not being positioned as a rapper stepping into a rave for a few guest vocals, and it is not a DJ set with a bigger personality placed in front of it; instead, it is the idea of a frontman-led techno show: live vocals, crowd interaction, rave energy, and the physical unpredictability of someone standing at the center of the room’s attention.

That move does not come out of nowhere either…

Over the past fifteen years, Mr. Polska has moved across Dutch hip-hop, Polish music, rap, rave, and harder electronic spaces, building a catalog with millions of streams, multiple gold and platinum records, and collaborations connected to names like Major Lazer, Yellow Claw, Ronnie Flex, and Mad Decent. More recently, “Polska Jumpstyle,” his collaboration with Natte Visstick and Vieze Asbak, pushed him into a different lane entirely, passing 42 million streams and finding its way into sets from Sara Landry, FANTASM, Nico Moreno, Diplo, and major techno and hard dance festivals.

The interview below gets into what happens after that kind of crossover moment, which is where the story gets interesting.

Mr. Polska talks about designing music for a full festival set, why the new repertoire is being built around the show from the beginning, and the creative risk of entering a scene where the DJ usually sits at the center of the format. His answer is direct: he does not want to be “the next DJ.”

He wants to build a live rave experience where the frontman becomes part of the energy system.

Interview With Mr. Polska

“Polska Jumpstyle” has passed 42 million streams. What did its response tell you about the type of show your audience wanted next?

It showed me that there was a real appetite for something that sits between the worlds I’ve always been part of. The track connected with the harder electronic scene in a way I hadn’t experienced before, and suddenly I was seeing my music being played by DJs and on major techno and hard dance stages around the world.

I wanted to take that same energy and bring the part of my identity that people know from my live shows into the rave. That’s where the idea of making the frontman the centre of the show came from.

Your records already connect rap delivery with high-BPM production. What changed when you began designing that sound for a full festival set?

The biggest change was that I stopped thinking about individual tracks and started thinking about the energy of the entire room. A festival set needs to feel like one continuous experience, building tension, releasing it, interacting with the crowd and constantly pushing the energy forward.

My background in rap and live performance naturally brings that frontman element, while the electronic music gives me the intensity and pace of a rave. The interesting part is putting those two things together without making either one feel like an afterthought.

What does “live” mean within this format, and which parts of the performance are happening in real time?

For me, live means that the audience isn’t just watching someone behind decks. I’m physically at the centre of the performance, interacting with the crowd and directing the energy of the room in real time.

Are upcoming releases being created as part of the live show, or will the performance draw from a wider section of your catalog?

Absolutely.

The new repertoire is being built around this new direction. We’re not simply taking existing tracks and putting them into a techno set, the music is being developed with the live show in mind from the beginning.

What was the largest creative risk involved in presenting Mr. Polska in this format?

Probably the fact that there isn’t really a template for it. I’m entering a scene where the DJ is traditionally the centre of the performance, while I’m deliberately putting the frontman in that position instead.

The risk is that people could see it as either a rapper trying to fit into techno, or as a DJ show without a DJ. I don’t want it to be either. I want to create something that has the intensity of a rave but the impact and unpredictability of a live frontman.

After the first festival season, what would tell you that the live act has established its own identity?

If people stop describing it as “Mr. Polska doing a techno show” and simply start recognising it as its own thing.

For me, success is when people come to a show expecting to experience something they can’t get from a traditional DJ set, when the crowd becomes part of the performance and the energy in the room is just as important as the music itself. We’ve already seen that response at Teletech and Nachtwacht, where the audience reacted strongly to the format.