German-language rap is often perceived in public as apolitical and affirmative. We counteract this perception with a five-part series with the best political albums of recent years and show that German rap can also function as a social corrective and formulate a precise critique of the prevailing conditions, apart from the really big chart hits. This time it’s about Disarstar with his album DEUTSCHER OKTOBER, which will be released in 2021.
Radical resistance and RAF reminiscence
Of all the artists on this list, Disarstar is certainly the one who places the most emphasis on his political aspirations. It starts with the name of his fifth album: DEUTSCHER OKTOBER. An allusion to the so-called “German Autumn”, which describes the political atmosphere in September and October 1977, which was characterized by the attacks of the Red Army Function (RAF). Although the RAF is not even mentioned specifically on the album, there is a connecting element between them and the Hamburg rapper: the motive of radical resistance to the existing conditions.
In the intro of the album, Disarstar sets himself apart from his rap colleagues – in classic hip-hop style. Like him, they come from precarious backgrounds, but on their way to success they adopt the neo-liberal myth of always being able to achieve advancement through their own efforts and promote it in their music. The result would be an uncritical street rap interspersed with materialistic status symbols. However, Disarstar recognizes the task of rap in the detailed examination of our capitalist system, which does not make it possible for everyone to rise from their class:
“You have a chance to criticize the situation people are in / Maybe that’s what they expect of you /
You write parts about a Rolex / Instead of keeping to yourself what an idiot you are”
Disarstar’s rejection of the bourgeois state and its institutions
GERMAN OCTOBER is above all a milieu study in the spirit of 20th-century literary naturalism. Already the first album song “sick“ is intensively dedicated to an exploited and neglected class, to which Disarstar feels a part: “Your life American Pie, our life La Haine / Few ideas, all that’s left to do is dream of the sun and go to the gym”, raps Disarstar.
The analysis of his own environment, but also of the political and media debates, leads Disarstar to the diagnosis that our society is ill. She suffers from poverty that threatens her existence, deadly racism and an almost religious-looking consumer cult. Disarstar’s view of society is one with the glasses of Marxism, but free of paralyzing dogmatism. For him, civil society is not in an insurmountable crisis, but must itself be completely overcome. Consequently, he also rejects their rituals: “Let the others vote, as if the misery is changing,” it is also said on “Sick”.
On GERMAN OKTOBER, Disarstar presents itself as an uncompromising fighter for a better world
Controversial theses, with which Disarstar, who describes himself as a “radical left”, stages himself as a tough fighter for justice. And here there is perhaps a parallel to the RAF: the will to uncompromising resistance. Disarstar’s fundamental contempt for the institutions of the bourgeois state is evident on the song “Australia”, in which he contrasts the reality of his environment with that of those privileged middle-class children who think about years abroad after high school to live their “dreams”:
“Here is, even if you look away, bitterness / focus on the right, smack Nazis in the mouth / shoot judges, legal expenses insurance / we can only save ourselves / here, where politicians go golfing and eat money”
With such lines, Disarstar ties in with its album title and glorifies the terrorist activities of the RAF to a certain extent. Artistic exaggeration, targeted provocation or dangerous fantasies of violence?
DEUTSCHER OKTOBER is a precise systemic criticism delivered with a lot of rage on atmospheric beats. Musically, Disarstar combines drill elements with modern autotune elements and hard street rap passages on the album. This is how Disarstar manages to produce his most musically accomplished album to date, which not only successfully picks up on modern influences, but also spins them further into its own Hamburg sound. It’s been a long time since anyone launched a fundamental all-round attack on our capitalist system as euphoniously as Disarstar.
In Part 1 of this series, we dealt with Immigrants Masculine ALL AGAINST ALL. Part 3 will be about ONE HAND BREAKS THE OTHER from Waving The Guns.