“Berlin-corner of Schönhauser …” is a DEFA film from 1957 that collected the attitude to life of the post-war generation. Almost seven decades later, Zartmann of Schönhauser Allee in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg sets another memorial, but in particular gives the inner life and external impact of the early twenty-year-olds. The Schönhauser EP with nine tracks would actually be a disguised debut album.
The Berliner, who keeps the first name and date of birth secret, had an early rap hit with “2 blocks” in 2021, but then disappeared due to contractual difficulties in self-elected restraint, before he reappeared as a young mild 2.0 and since then also grown into a teen star status thanks to features with ski AGGU or Bausa. He succeeds because he can neutralize both what is just so popular, but also adorable stormy songs like “Nobody”, which glorifies a celebration-as-gab’s-kein-mentality at the same time and questioned melancholic.
Schönhauser also lives from this sensitive balance to read on the guests: With the approximately the same old rapper Gustav, he goes the nightly “Schönhauser” long, with Max Raabe, who could be his father, he sings in “Let’s go” to the lavish string arrangement a little early: “Before it stays as it is, let’s stop.” Somewhere else, Zartmann is again “a femoral hedonist” and “throw everything down”. While a coherent melange is created musically from indie pop, dance beans and 80ies rock, not only the auto-tune experiment “Your Dudenkschoen” shows that Zartmann not only knows trap, but also Bon Iver-and that this debut album, it should ever appear exciting.
You can find out which albums were still published in April 2025 via our monthly publication list.