Every text about this strange leader of German hip-hop pop has to say: “Apache stays the same”. Even if many random radio listeners are still surprised at the line from the sparkling hit “Roller” even five years after its release, after this number became the most successful long-term hit in the German single charts with 168 weeks: “Abwatsche remains “Yeah, haha, funny, but what does that mean?” So it is always a promise to the ever-loyal followers: This two-meter guy from the Electoral Palatinate with a denim vest, sunglasses and Winnetou hair will never let his high spirits corrupt him and will always know where he comes from and who he is for thanks to everything. The most beautiful fairy tale in the great collection of pop legends.
So, everything will be the same when Apache 207 goes on a big tour again and fills the Munich Olympic Hall twice? When comparing the previous tour with the current one, subtle differences in the production are noticeable: In October 2022, he was carried in a coffin onto the stage in the Olympiahalle with the backdrop of his old Ludwigshafen apartment block and later waved royally like the Queen in a rowing boat on a wooden frame to the playback of the “Titanic” song “My Heart Will Go On” through the sea of people. Well, at the tour’s opening concert in Stuttgart, he cruised from the main stage to the side stage in the back seat of a red mid-range convertible, waving again but singing (“Blulich”) himself. Does that tell us something? Oh well. It’s not a triumph; after his next record hit, namely “Komet” with Udo Lindenberg, he could afford something fancier, like the Lambo in the video for “Wunder”. But maybe there is an advertising partner behind this. And: It’s still about mortality, like back then in the coffin.
In a ZDF interview (actually, Apache 207 hardly speaks to the media, preferring to retain the authority to interpret his mystery on his social channels himself) he said that his current creative phase is about “coming to terms with the certainty of finiteness.” He stages his two-and-a-half-hour show with all sorts of effects as a journey through time: he plays the impoverished rap pensioner who returns to enjoy the time of his greatest successes once again.
That would be: today. Nothing and no one has been able to top “Komet” so far. “Udo, the cool pig” wrote to him three years ago. The old rocker had rejected all other collaborations with the usual bully rappers, but he liked this one, who – despite all his macho behavior – had charm and wit and actually had a talent for singing, and he also had long hair. “Neither of us had any need for it, we did it because we wanted to,” Apache 207 explains the secret of success to ZDF. “Komet” hit again and again, it was the first number 1 in his life for Lindenberg, who was 78 years old as of May 17, 2024, and it stayed there for 18 weeks, even longer than “Damn I Love You” by Matse Reim and “One Star” by DJ Ötzi. Since then, Apache has often been referred to as a “pop rapper”.
What he is, only he knows. Volkan Yaman, a high school graduate, born in Mannheim, now 26 years old, created this fictional character in 2018, using building blocks from his own life: difficult circumstances, a single mother, no money for Nutella on the sandwich, worked his way up as a rapper because it didn’t work out as a footballer , “German rapeseed Miroslav Klose,” as he said ironically. This is how he became a man, complete with precarious romanticism and neighborhood grammar, on golden roller skates, a bicycle, a scooter and sometimes in a Mercedes, but without the prison boasting of his Berlin aggro colleagues (“They’re just monkeys / with a few guns”) Idol of advancement, daring but well-behaved. “Gucci sandals, I only wear them to spite myself.” Real? Fake? Doesn’t matter. Sometimes he, his managing brother and his best friend from back in the team have to smile, he says.
As he likes, he rows through the musical styles with Travolta dance arms: cloud and trap rap meets disco, Eurodance, Latin pop, oriental music, pan flute and campfire guitar – Generation Z’s all-time party mix Fourth record “Gartenstadt” (the neighborhood where he grew up) meets “Capri Sonne” meets “Coco Chanel”, you want what you always had and a little more. This is how you put up with yourself and the world, Apache’s appropriate line is: “I never want to leave here again… if it stays like this.”
Apache 207, Tue & Wed, May 21st & 22nd, MunichOlympia Hall