You can let art be art. Don’t read too little into them, but don’t read too much into them either. In hip-hop, for example, one could easily overlook chauvinistic lines. Because otherwise the rhyme might not fit quite so well. And because many gangster rappers are supposed to be really nice in private. Rappers are just rappers. But language is not just what is spoken. This is reflected in various social and political debates – from gender to everyday sexism to the correct term for people of colour.
One could ask whether rap is the right place for such topics. There is often enough criticism that they take the fun and lightness out of a good track. But then there’s mob MC. He raps: Men “cry around because the zeitgeist is taking hip-hop away from them”. And he turns the understanding of an entire genre on its head. Because “hip-hop means telling you, ‘Shut your stupid mouth, you bold.'” The native of Rostock, who played drums in punk and metal cover bands in his youth, teases quite bluntly and as one would expect from the scene is used to. But for the other side. He taunts what has long since become rap phrases that no one questions anymore.
He does that because the use of language is crucial; through him stereotypes would internalize and preserve certain resentments, he says. And he doesn’t want that. So he resists, knows how to use language to spit more than just good rhymes. In his texts, the Berliner by choice uncovers prejudices and refutes outdated arguments. But he doesn’t point with the finger, but sticks it in the wound: to trap beats, for example, he criticizes slut shaming and political injustice and finds the right flow for each of his many punchlines. The choice of words: as precise as proletarian. He’s still a punk at heart. The left attitude has remained as a mob MC, only the genre has changed. Something like battle rap with an educational mission.
Pöbel MC, Thursday, March 31, 8 p.m., Feierwerk, Hansastraße 39