German-language rap is often perceived in public as apolitical and affirmative. We are countering this perception with a five-part series featuring the best political albums of recent years, showing that German rap can also function as a social corrective, apart from the big chart hits, and formulate a precise critique of the prevailing conditions. Zuzug Masulin starts with their 2017 record ALLE AGAINST ALL.
The political-philosophical conscience of German rap
When it comes to German rap with a message, music that critically examines the spirit of the times, then the Berlin band Zuzug Maskulin is not far away. Although the Zecken-Rap icons always struggle with their standing as feuilleton favorites and definitely don’t want to be perceived as “slogan rappers”, they are the political and philosophical conscience of German rap.
The two band members grim104 and Testo met each other in 2010 during an editorial internship at rap.de. Editor-in-chief at the time: Royal Bunker founder Markus Staiger. The two newcomers work together, become friends and start making their own music. Because: Both would like to swap sides, no longer write about hip-hop, but be on stage themselves. As the band name, the two choose Zuzüge Masculine, an allusion to the rap crew Westberlin Masculine, which was popular in the 2000s.
ALL AGAINST ALL: Precise zeitgeist criticism with an eye for historical continuity
Resentments against new Berliners are not uncommon in the federal capital – especially in the rap game. Grim104 and Testo not only parody this local patriotism with their band name, but also take it as inspiration for their first album title with ironic exaggeration and a provocative allusion to the boycott of Jews under National Socialism. BUY NOT AT INCOME is released in 2011 as a free album and helps the newly formed band to become well known – and to a label signing with the Hamburg indie label Buback. In 2015 Zuzug Maskulin released their album ALLES BRENNT, with which they made a name for themselves in the alternative left scene and played for the first time at “Rock im Ring”. A true childhood dream. ALLE GEN ALL appears three years later, the album we are talking about here. Because although Zuzug Masculine has been characterized by socially critical and provocative lyrics from the very beginning, they formulate a precise critique of the zeitgeist like never before, which also takes historical continuities into account.
The first song on the album, “Was für eine Zeit”, is an example of this. In aggressive resignation, grim104 and Testo work their way through the pop culture phenomena of a disoriented mass society. Craft beer, mock debates on identity politics and everyday influencers hidden behind clickbait titles: “That’s why my grandparents took to the streets in ’89.” Sums up Testo despairingly.
This is the central theme of the album. Criticism of the present in the context of the aftermath of the murderous 20th century. While the former is spelled out on songs like “Yeezy Christ Superstar”, “Stirb” and “Steffi Graf”, the latter finds resonance on the tracks “Uwe & Heiko”, “Vor Adams Zeiten” and “Steine & Draht”.
On “Steine & Draht” grim104 and Testo compare the experiences of their parents’ generations from the FRG and GDR. Grim104, who grew up in Lower Saxony, raps about traumatized soldiers, the smoking chimneys of the economic miracle, whose black smoke in the air mixes with the ashes of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and the hopeless struggle of the Red Army faction. An iconic description of the West German post-war decades, which Testo, who was born in Leipzig and grew up in Stralsund, supplements with a real socialist perspective in the second stanza. Here the GDR is personified, among other things, as a jealous lover:
“One beer too many, one joke too far
Then he shows himself the class enemy
I’ll break it up, I’ll help you, the West is a whore
And if you wanna leave me for her
Then you catch a bullet”
Growing up in the (East German) province
The failure of the GDR and the years of upheaval that followed, in whose lawless chaos Testo grew up as a teenager, are a recurring motif on ALLE GEGEN ALLE. The song “Teenage Werwolf” is about growing up in the provinces, about right-wing extremist violence and youthful destructiveness. Here you can already see that fine feeling for the East German world in the years after ’89 and its implications for today, which also made Testo’s novel “Null Years”, published in 2022, one of the most exciting contributions to the post-reunification discourse.
ALL AGAINST ALL is a real sweeping blow. The album takes up countless debates, reveals hundreds of problems and still appears to be of one piece, both lyrically and musically. And: Despite the various meta-levels, numerous pop-cultural allusions and historical parallels, it doesn’t seem too cerebral at any point. A remarkable achievement that makes the album one of the best German rap records of the past decade.
In part 2 of our series about political German rap albums we will dedicate ourselves to Disarstars DEUTSCHER OKTOBER.