On a mid-March Saturday night in Austin, Texas, hundreds—maybe even thousands—of people are lined up around the outside of a dance music venue decked out in pashminas, sparkles and combat boots, waiting for hours to make sure they see Mau P.
The 29-year-old Dutch DJ has in recent years experienced a similar phenomenon at venues across the world, while racking up hundreds of millions of streams and becoming one of the most in-demand artists in electronic dance music. The night before his show at SXSW in Austin, he played Pier 48 in San Francisco. The next day, he’s headed to Las Vegas. From there, he’ll go to Switzerland, Australia, Dubai and India.
Sebastian Nevols for Forbes
“It's exactly what I envisioned for my whole teenage life,” Mau P tells Forbes. “I get to do my passion every day. And my passion is my work at the same time.”
It’s a future that would’ve seemed very far away for the teenager named Maurits Jan Westveen, who dropped out of a communications and multimedia program in college to tour across the Netherlands under the stage name Maurice West. Back then, he was producing what he now calls “commercial EDM,” heavily influenced by artists like Martin Garrix and Swedish House Mafia. Though it was enough to land a few gigs and label releases, it wasn’t on the level he was chasing.
“I don't think [the sound] stood out back then,” he says. “It was just of good enough quality to be a release for a label that was thinking that they would make money from a song… they were looking for younger kids just wanting to be DJs, I guess.”
The turning point came during the pandemic, when he began experimenting with house and techno. As his sound evolved, so did his thinking. Rather than forcing this new direction onto an existing brand, he made a bold decision: retire Maurice West entirely and introduce a new persona.
The name Mau P was a clever trick to get global audiences to call him by his childhood nickname, “Maupie,” meaning “little Mau.” And though he says the ploy backfired in his home country, where people now assume his name is pronounced “Mau Peh,” the new identity was met with immediate success across the world.
His first breakout hit, “Drugs From Amsterdam,” came out in 2022 and has now been streamed more than 260 million times on Spotify. Since then, releases like “Like I Like It,” “Dress Code” and “Tesla” have propelled him onto some of the world’s biggest stages, including Coachella, Ultra Music Festival and Electric Daisy Carnival, along with residencies at Wynn Las Vegas and Pacha Ibiza.
Next, he wants to build his business beyond his own music with Baddest Behaviour Records, joining a wave of DJs like Kygo, Diplo and John Summit who are extending their brands into label ownership. With dance music booming in the U.S., timing is on his side—but differentiation will be key. His edge? “I think I found a sound that’ll keep people dancing for the longest amount of time,” he says.
Mau P exemplifies the qualities seen by the young, entrepreneurial talent celebrated each year on the Forbes Under 30 Europe list. This year’s honorees have shown a particular ability to not only weather, but capitalize on rapidly shifting industry dynamics across music, film and television.
In this age of algorithms, 20-year-old Sienna Spiro showed just how quickly a catchy tune on TikTok can change your career. Last May, she was averaging around two million monthly listeners on Spotify, but after her October single “Die On This Hill” went viral and broke into the Billboard Hot 100, her monthly audience has now risen to 26 million. She was nominated at the 2026 BRITs Critics’ Choice Awards and set up a sold-out North American concert tour that will transition to major venues in Dublin and Glasgow in 2026.
And she’s not alone; several honorees on this year’s Under 30 Europe Entertainment list turned viral sounds into global reach. There’s Beabadoobe, 25, whose “Coffee” became ubiquitous on Covid-era TikTok and formed the basis of what is now more than 25 million monthly listeners. The same goes for 26-year-old Artemas, whose “I like the way you kiss me” has now been streamed over 1.5 billion times.
The real challenge for young performers is how to sustain a successful career after the initial buzz has calmed down. For 29-year-old Marisa Abela, her initial break came when internet chatter helped turn the relatively niche, young professional workplace drama Industry into prestige Sunday night programming for HBO. That role won her a British Academy Television Award in 2025. From there, she parlayed the success into roles in global blockbuster Barbie, the Steven Soderbergh-directed Black Bag, and the starring part in Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black.
An industry starved for fresh stars knows it identified one in 16-year-old Owen Cooper, who became the youngest-ever Emmy winner for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series in Adolescence, where he delivered a chilling study of a teenager radicalized by the manosphere. He soon added Golden Globe, SAG Award and Independent Spirit Award recognitions, and recently appeared as Young Heathcliff in the latest big screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
Others are making their mark on the business side of entertainment. Ryan Peterson, 29, has grown his digital marketing agency Stellar into a global force contributing to campaigns responsible for more than 100 billion streams and numerous Grammy-winning projects. Mara Cracaleanu, the 24-year-old founder of Melancholia Pictures, has produced five feature films and is now developing a docuseries with HBO after earning the Council of Europe Series Co-Development Award.
To find this year’s class, Forbes editors sourced nominations from industry professionals, list alumni, and the public. To be eligible, all candidates had to be under the age of 30 as of April 14, 2026, and never before named to a 30 Under 30 North America, Asia or Europe list.
After reviewing thousands of submissions and conducting months of reporting, editors narrowed the pool to a shortlist evaluated by a panel of industry heavyweights. This year’s judges included Island Records CEO Imran Majid; acclaimed actress Lashana Lynch; Forbes Under 30 alum and Warner Music France head of A&R Eros Gorse; and Oscar-winning filmmakers Tom Berkeley and Ross White.
This year’s list was edited by Dean Sterling Jones, Zoya Hasan and Matt Craig. For a link to our complete 2026 30 Under 30 Entertainment list, click here, and for full 2026 30 Under 30 coverage, click here.
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