Digital platforms have fundamentally changed the conditions of artistic work in recent years. In the music industry in particular, production, release, and reception processes are now closely linked to algorithmically organized infrastructures. Streaming services and social media platforms structure visibility, reach, and success, thereby influencing not only economic aspects but also creative processes, self-image, and working methods of artists.

This development is particularly evident in the German-speaking hip-hop underground. On the one hand, digital platforms open up new opportunities for self-publishing and independence from traditional gatekeepers. On the other hand, new forms of pressure are emerging: continuous output, algorithmic logic, self-marketing, and the uncertainty of whether artistic work can be economically viable in the long term. Artistic freedom, intrinsic motivation, and flow experiences are increasingly coming into conflict with market-driven demands.

Against this backdrop, the central question is how artists experience and negotiate this tension and integrate it into their artistic practice. It is particularly relevant that many of these experiences can only be articulated to a limited extent and often only become apparent in the process of creating, producing, and reflecting. Traditional scientific approaches reach their limits here. Based on this problem situation, the work pursues an artistic-research approach. Qualitative interviews with seven self-publishing artists from the German-speaking hip-hop underground form the empirical basis. However, the perspectives gained are not only analyzed, but also further processed in an artistic process. The focus is on the development of the mixtape “Between Pressure & Flow", which functions as an epistemic medium: individual experiences are transformed into a common, but not homogeneous narrative through sound, montage, and dramaturgy.