Ifa

A salon, an airline, and a webcam

Ifa was born in Germany to Iranian parents, and in an interview published on 21 February 2026 she described both countries as home, one the Mutterland and the other the Vaterland. She was 38 at the time. Her working life before music had nothing to do with heavy music at all: she finished a hairdressing apprenticeship at 16 and held a master's certificate by 21, then spent five years as cabin crew for Air Berlin, including two years based in Abu Dhabi. Afterwards she opened her own salon in Berlin, where part of the clientele were German YouTubers. It was those clients who told her to try streaming, and she started shortly before the first COVID-19 lockdowns shut the salon trade down.

Singing had been there far longer. She sang as a child and was pushed along by teachers through school, and at around 15 or 16 she handled hip-hop vocals in a band. Skateboarding brought Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park within reach; a relationship and Amon Amarth took her into melodic death metal. None of that involved harsh vocals until roughly a year into streaming, when she began teaching herself to growl live on camera rather than working it out privately first. Saturday night became the fixed vocal slot on the channel, and it has stayed that way since.

Baraye, and the first time her name was on a record

Her recorded career began as a guest. On 9 September 2022 she sang on Best Of Me by Never Back Down, a metalcore five-piece from the Heinsberg area of North Rhine-Westphalia; the song deals with a damaged relationship with a father and the work of getting clear of it. The same year she appeared on Enemy alongside Hostage, a track that surfaced on the deluxe edition of that band's Memento Mori.

Her first release under her own name came on 13 November 2022: Baraye (Metal), a metal adaptation of an Iranian protest song, put out by herself rather than through a label. That choice of opening statement has held. She uses the channel to talk about women's rights in Iran and her criticism of the regime there, and about colonialism and resource extraction in Africa, and she has put the reasoning plainly: unser Schweigen hat nun mal einfach sehr viel Macht, our silence simply holds a great deal of power. It is the argument that an artist who says nothing has still said something.

A run of singles with Timo Bonner

The solo catalogue proper starts with Sense of Myself on 17 March 2023, released through Mega Blaster Music Services and announced by her at the time as her first single. Seven more followed inside twenty months: Still Trying on 7 July 2023, Haunted on 13 October 2023, Burn Your Desire on 3 November 2023, a stripped version of Still Trying on 22 December 2023, On My Own on 3 May 2024, Faith on 16 August 2024 and Through Masking Eyes on 15 November 2024. That last one remains the most recent release listed on the streaming services.

Behind almost all of it is Timo Bonner, who sings in Our Mirage and Alleviate and is credited as composer on nearly the whole catalogue, with Ramon Kluft appearing as a co-writer on some tracks. The practical effect is that the records are built with a working metalcore vocalist rather than an outside producer treating metal as a style choice, and that Ifa carries both the clean singing and the harsh vocals herself, which is also exactly what the Saturday streams had been rehearsing in public for several years.

Where things stand in 2026

There is no album on the shelves yet, but there is one being promoted. Venue billings for the winter run refer to a debut album and to songs from it making up her half of the set; no title and no release date have been published. In the February 2026 interview she confirmed the headline tour, around six German cities in late 2026, as her first, and framed it as the next step rather than a one-off.

The clearest piece of live evidence so far is a streamer concert in Frankfurt in January 2026, where she performed with Never Back Down behind her. She has said that for a lot of the younger people in those rooms it was a first live metal experience, and that the line she hears most often from her viewers is ich höre das nicht, aber — I don't listen to this, but. She treats that as a responsibility rather than a compliment, and says it shapes how she approaches a stage.

Twitch remains the base rather than a stepping stone that has been kicked away: the Saturday vocal streams continue alongside variety content. The live side is presented by Echo Vision Artist Management, named as presenter on the Berlin and Munich billings for the tour.

The co-headline experiment

The run is billed as DIS // CLOSURE – The Co-Headline Tour 2026, shared with Never Back Down, and it is not structured as a support slot. Dates confirmed on venue pages include BETTY in Hamburg's St Pauli on 27 November 2026, the Backstage Club in Munich on 29 November 2026 and Privatclub in Berlin Kreuzberg on 5 December 2026, with the full run taking in roughly six German cities across late November and early December.

What the billings describe is a single merged set rather than two separate ones: material from Ifa's debut album placed against new Never Back Down songs, played as one continuous performance with both audiences in the same room. Doors in Hamburg and Berlin open at 19:00 for a 20:00 start, with Munich also starting at 20:00. Berlin is priced at 22 euros in advance plus fees and 27 euros on the door; Hamburg starts at 24.50 euros plus fees. Local support changes from city to city, with Give Me Rain opening in Hamburg and Torrential Rain in Munich.

The co-headliners bring the touring experience to the arrangement. Never Back Down have four studio albums out and have shared stages with Any Given Day, Rise of the Northstar and Thy Art Is Murder. No reviews of the DIS // CLOSURE shows exist yet, for the obvious reason that the first date has not happened; the Frankfurt streamer concert in January 2026 is the only performance of this pairing with any public record behind it, and the venues are club-sized rather than halls, which suggests the promoters are sizing the audience off the stream numbers carefully rather than optimistically.