The Foreign Correspondent - Stories About German Rock Music # 22

I think a lot of you people out there are waiting for my daily post. So please don't be too sad when I am not able to do this right now. There are too many things that has to be done and I don't find the time to write some posts.

Today I want to introduce a German band that made Hip Hop with German lyrics famous. It was back in the very late 80s when me and my mate went to the local youth club to see a brand new German Rap band live. We decided to go there because of some good reviews about their gigs in some underground newspaper. Astonished that there were only 50 people around we what will happen. Then four guys entered the stage and did an awesome concert. Not really sure if we should believe or not - rapping in German works very well. If this early concert didn't represent their later abilities we knew that they could be something great. It was one of my first concerts ever a band used to  have a DJ working on the turntables. In this time they combined fantastic samples with a steady beat and some kind of rock music. A short time later they entered the charts with their first hit single Die da, a story about a girl that has only time for her boyfriend one day a week (the other days she's out with other boyfriends). Most of their later records reached high numbers in the charts. Their abilities of playing unplugged was shown by MTV when they filmed an appearance live in a cave in northern Germany.

Enjoy and have a good weekend, wherever you may stay

Die Fantastischen Vier - Der Picknicker

The Foreign Correspondent - Stories About German Rock Music # 13

The Jazzkantine (jazz canteen) is a jazz rap band from Braunscheig. They was founded in 1993, inspired by Guru's Jazzmatazz, by Ole Sander, Matthias Lanzer and Christian Eitner. Characteristically for the music of Jazzkantine is the mixture of the different style elements of the rap, funk and jazz. The band co-operated on it to so different artists like Smudo (from an also famous German rap band The Fantastic Four), Götz Alsmann (well known in Germany for working together with big bands) and bands like Such A Surge. If I have to describe their music it is like you make some German rap voer music and beats heavenly influenced by regular jazz standards interpreted in a very funky and danceable way. In the course of the years Jazzkantine have experimented themselves the group with different styles like combining heavy rock, blues and German folk songs with their kind of sound. Nowadays the came back to their roots playing their origin sound added with famous jazz musicians. The songs are from their second record Heiss und fettig (hot and fatty):

Jazzkantine - Du
Jazzkantine - Ein Teil von Dir
Jazzkantine - Bin im Delirium
Jazzkantine - Geht ab!
Jazzkantine - Take five