Music
Rainald Grebe renounces his “trademark”
Rainald Grebe gives the concert “Halleluja Berlin” in the Waldbühne at the end of July. photo
© Hannes P. Albert/dpa
You have to have debates about cultural appropriation. Says the singer-songwriter Rainald Grebe, who will be performing at the Berlin Waldbühne at the end of July.
The headdress also has family reasons. “It was a very old number from the 90s called “The Indian””, reported Grebe. “Because my father is a Karl May expert, I messed up all these Karl May things in a funny number where a chief was talking. It was nonsense.” After that he kept the jewelry and put it on all sorts of things.
“It was such a senseless action and then my trademark,” said Grebe. In the current situation, that no longer works for him. “This humor can’t stand the discussion. This jewelry can’t stand the serious discussion about these topics.”
Freedom is important to him
Grebe understands the debate about cultural appropriation, for example by indigenous peoples. “The basic questions come from a good feeling on the left with such serious topics as colonialism. The tips then perhaps go too far sometimes. But that is perhaps also normal when the discussions start that certain things are simply said more often.” However, work in culture is always also cultural appropriation, “because you let yourself be inspired”.
Grebe likes to take up space for his work. “I always found it normal that morality is not the priority. Sometimes you have to do immoral things on stage,” he said. That is now more difficult. “One thinks beforehand: where will one get the next shit storm, how will that be discussed again?” At the same time, the singer-songwriter said: “I don’t think it’s that terrible. It’s annoying sometimes, you have to think about it.”
For his concert on July 29th in the Berlin Waldbühne, Grebe also goes back to his beginnings as a trained puppeteer. “You can do very small hand puppet things with a screen and camera and bring them to the big stage.”