Before the decks, there was the hardwood. Born in Frankfurt in 1994, Malik Müller spent his youth chasing the game at the highest level — long before he ever touched a CDJ.

At thirteen he entered the renowned Urspring basketball academy, won youth national championships and earned a place on Germany's junior national teams. At sixteen he was flown to New York for the Jordan Brand Classic — voted the tournament's best player and meeting Michael Jordan himself.

A scholarship took him to Virginia Tech in the NCAA, before he returned home to turn pro: a German champion (BBL) in 2016 with Brose Bamberg, a cup winner in 2017 and a ProA champion in 2019 — with stops in Bamberg, Ludwigsburg, Göttingen and Hamburg.

In 2020 he stepped back from the league to follow a different rhythm. At 27, the same discipline that built an athlete built an artist. MJULA was born — and with him, the UNXPECTED Collective.