Exberliner Issue 171 May 2018

WHAT’S ON — Music
Editor’s Choice
Battling for the
right reasons
The month, we take stock of the current state of hip hop in
Germany as well as on the other side of the pond.
By Michael Hoh
Aldo Gutierrez Chacon
MUSIC NEWS
Going south
Compiled by Rio
de Janeiro native
Ed Motta, the fifth
volume of Markus
Liesenfeld a.k.a. DJ
Supermarkt’s Too
Slow To Disco series
goes Brazil. Out on
City Slang, May 4
Geo experiments
After a pre-taster single,
“Tar”, in February,
Berlin experimental
sound artist Lucrecia
Dalt releases her geo
inspired album
Anticlines via Cargo
Records on May 4
Birthday bash
Pop the corks!
Chicks on Speed,
which today comprises
Alex Murray-
Leslie and Melissa
Logan, turned 20 last
year, and throw a
belated party at the
Volks-bühne on
May 10
Is German hip hop in trouble? If
you look at current mainstream
media stories revolving around
Kollegah and Farid Bang’s win at this
year’s Echo, which awards Germany’s
best-selling acts and albums,
and the associated accusations of
antisemitism, you might get that impression.
TV channel WDR recently
aired a documentary about the “dark
side of German rap”, examining antisemitic
tendencies in local scenes,
and even for Bild the whole ordeal
was welcoming front page fodder.
German mainstream hip hop has
certainly come a long way since Die
Fantastischen Vier first blurted out
their nonsensical “Die da?” rhymes
all over MTV in the early 1990s. And
with protagonists spewing misogynist,
homophobic and antisemitic
rhymes at their listeners, parts of the
genre truly took a turn to the dark
side, reinforcing outdated stereotypes
presented as battle rap under
the banner of artistic freedom. But
given that the self-proclaimed Anti-
Deutschrapper of Antilopen Gang
also reigned the charts with their
album Anarchie & Alltag, it seems
that not all hope is lost. Or take Berlin
rapper Ahzumjot, who will take
the stage at Lido this month. On his
latest album, he is more about Luft
& Liebe than on-the-ground insult
battle rap these days.
But what about the state of
hip hop in the United States?
In Germany, hip hop falls behind
rock, pop and Schlager on
the country’s “favourite genre”
list, but just looking at the last
Grammy Awards, hip hop clearly
spearheads mainstream music
culture across the pond. Seun
Kuti, who follows in the footsteps
of his father, afrobeat pioneer Fela
Kuti, taking the stage at Festsaal
Kreuzberg this month together
with Egypt 80 and his new album
Black Times, has his doubts about
the genre’s developments over the
years: “There’s no distinguishing
line between hip hop and pop,
between gangsta rap and Celine
Dion, with their autotune and all
that,” he said in an interview with
OkayAfrica. “I loved hip hop because
I thought it was the music
for change. The time for saying
something relevant is gone.”
That might ring true for the
mainstream-y bulk, but luckily
there’s more below the surface.
Take Big Freedia (pictured), for
instance, who made bounce
music, a highly energetic hip hop
subgenre, popular outside of the
New Orleans city proper via a
guest appearance on RuPaul’s 2013
single “Peanut Butter”. Cross the
Gulf of Mexico from New Orleans
in a straight line and you’ll eventually
hit Guatemala. There, Rebeca
Lane is one of the most outspoken
rappers against machismo and
misogyny. In the past, the sociology
graduate called out fellow MCs
for misogynist raps in her song
“Bandera Negra” and even offered
workshops before her concerts to
educate her audience about the
political climate in Guatemala –
talk about getting your money’s
worth. And here’s a tip for all your
clubbing needs: to dance away all
that battle anger, don’t hesitate
to check out Ratchet at St. Georg
with Caramel Mafia and Shug La
Sheedah - or Tasty at Schwuz with
performances by Prens Emrah and
Haidar Darwish, two of Berlin’s hip
hop parties approaching the genre
from a queer angle. n
Ahzumjot May 4, 20:00 Lido, Kreuzberg | Ratchet May 5, 23:30 St. Georg, Kreuzberg
| Rebeca Lane May 7, 20:00 Kantine am Berghain, Friedrichshain | Tasty
May 11, 23:00 Schwuz, Neukölln | Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 May 19, 20:00 Festsaal
Kreuzberg, Treptow | Big Freedia May 22, 21:00 Club Gretchen, Kreuzberg
30
EXBERLINER 171