In December, the fallen Reich citizen understander, Corona denier and hooligan cuddler Xavier Naidoo rises from the crypt and enters big stages again. Linus Volkmann pays homage to a terrible German musician.
I swear, over 20 years ago I was on a coach with Xavier Naidoo. It was chartered by his record company at the time, EMI (RiP), and a dozen journalists were invited to be played the new record by the exceptional athlete Naidoo on a circuit through Cologne’s stop-and-go traffic.
There’s a bus going nowhere
What sounds like a semi-interesting fever dream is actually the bizarre reality of the music industry in 2002. Because the industry missed the digital revolution, it is faced with millions of illegal file sharing on the Internet. From now on, it is important in the industry to no longer send out new publications across the board to all possible editorial offices, but rather to arrange so-called “listening sessions”. This means that the new pieces remain with the manufacturer and cannot be leaked in any back rooms of boss reds or practitioners. For selected products, the record companies sometimes come up with something to enhance such dates – which are not very appreciated by the press.
Xavier Naidoo therefore gets a random bus ride through the congested traffic in Cologne – once from the Media Park over the rings and back. In retrospect, this session seems like a subtle diss against the act, but it was probably well-intentioned. Personally, I only accepted this invitation so that I wouldn’t spend the whole day in the editorial office and because I hoped that the whole thing would end up being so bizarre that I could squeeze out a good story.
However, the dullest bus experience of my life dashed this hope. Dispensable media people, bored record company trainees and a barely motivated Xavier Naidoo added up to a completely unlegendary event. The only thing I remember from the advertised record “Interplay – Everything for the Lord” is the song “If I already had children”. A completely stupid “protest song” performed in a self-righteous style, as if the reactionary rhymes of the text were a spiritual manifesto instead of just the cumbersome setting of the then very prominent label “Death penalty for child molesters”. In general, Xavier Naidoo’s sourly fermented early work already contains everything that would become really unpleasant at some point.
Just the line “I can’t watch / how you then teach my flesh and blood / lies on your school desks” represents an impressive foreshadowing of his later Corona stunts.
The soundtrack to the bowel movement
A few years later I have another encounter with a Naidoo look. For the cooking section of Intro Magazine (also RiP), which was popular at the time, I met Moses Pelham. Not only does he cook 500 grams of cheese with 500 grams of macaroni, but in the noughties he was also angry at his former musician colleague Naidoo. The two argued in several lawsuits about marketing rights, contracts and shareholdings. The interview – or rather the cooking – took place at Moses Pelham’s home. Yes, my life during this phase had a bit of a pedestrian “MTV Cribs” feel to it.
Moses lived on a representative floor near Hanauer Landstrasse – in true style with a pool table, original Udo Lindenberg paintings and many framed gold records on the walls. However, there is no trace of the hit collaboration in the nineties with the infamous Mannheimer Xavier Naidoo. You only came across it when you entered a small guest toilet. Naidoo? It’s for the shithouse. The message of the hanging could hardly have been clearer.
This path has to go
Before we get into the singer’s really nasty statements and moves, allow me to make the following long overdue statement: The most unpleasant thing about the “World Cup in your own country” in 2006, besides the unsavory black and red gold behavior, was definitely the unbearably pretentious Naidoo song “This Way”. Finally someone (me) said it!
Editorial recommendations
Missteps swag – the defective Naidoo system (excerpt)
The Wikipedia article about the controversies surrounding Xavier Naidoo seems like a ghost train congealed into text – with an extremely long journey time including a pathological coating. From aluminum hats, vaccination paranoia to racism, from the fact that Germany is not a sovereign state to anti-Semitic conspiracy prose. Everything that makes the world such a hostile place even today can be found here. Please understand that at this point I will only put two of his many-headed uglinesses on display.
No cunt
Moses and Xavier reconciled in 2012, but the latter almost ruined Kool Savas’s reputation as well as his own. In the collaborative album XAVAS, Xavier once again delves into violent fantasies, which in this case are aimed at homosexuals who are accused of pedophilia. The song “Where Are They Now?” delivers an impressive low point in German music history. Christian fundamentalism gone mad.
“You kill children and fetuses / and I will crush your balls. […] Why don’t you love a pussy / because every human being is made of one?”
It’s shocking how you can find this and all of Xavier’s other controversial songs on the internet to this day. It would be possible to link all of these evil Peinlo pieces here, but we consciously avoid it. Instead, to loosen things up, “Think of the children” was sprinkled in – a musically ironic comment by the rapper Alligatoah in 2014 on the Naidoo case, which was already smoldering at the time.
“We are not soul pop fans / We are Naidoo hooligans”
In 2000, the Mozambican contract worker Alberto Adriano was beaten to death by three neo-Nazis in Dessau. Out of this shock, the group Brothers Keepers was founded – consisting of Afro-German rappers of the time – and intervened in social discourse with the song “Adriano (Last Warning)”. The underrepresented voices of black people resonate, and the victim Adriano becomes a symbolic figure of right-wing terror. Xavier Naidoo is also very prominent among the rappers in the piece and beyond. 20 years later he is again part of a group song, this time even initiated by himself. The name of the piece is “Heimat” and directly after Xavier Naidoo you can hear Hannes Ostendorf, known as the singer of the right-wing extremist band Category C. Ostendorf is, among other things, connected to the action alliance HoGeSa (Hooligans against Salafists), at their largest gathering in Cologne in 2014 he played at the main train station in front of thousands of hooligans who had traveled there.
From Brothers Keepers to Category C – nothing describes Xavier Naidoo’s fall from grace as shockingly and succinctly as this half-sentence.
The apology
Three years ago “The Apology” – of course not labeled as such on his YouTube channel, but under the title “#OneLove”. Love always fits. For the upfuck that he has put up with over decades, at 3 minutes 14 it is fairly short – and that doesn’t include the greeting, farewell and generalities. However, I personally don’t think much of rejecting every public apology across the board and reflexively and trying to expose it as “hypocrisy” or “that person has JUST MADE IT WORSE!!!11”. The one that Xavier Naidoo is reading from the teleprompter is written very professionally and remains decidedly vague. Words that are guided by actual emotions sound different – but do you really want to hear those from Xavier Naidoo? Since his tearful remarks about a supposedly international campaign that would have freed captive children from the hands of the Adrenochrome sect, I at least have been convinced that this man should not be left alone with his emotions. Then it’s better to read out a watertight statement that sounds like it was written by Mister Burns’ lawyers. In any case, it should be noted that someone whose problematic statements have so consistently permeated his work and actions cannot absolve himself of them in three minutes. If he is really serious, this simply needs a comprehensive work-up.
The consequence
Contrary to popular claims – including from Xavier Naidoo – this is (still) a free country. Accordingly, a musician from whom even Mannheim’s sons have publicly distanced themselves can still pursue his profession. In mid-December, Naidoo will appear in Cologne’s Lanxess Arena, twice in a row. Both events are sold out. That’s already 40,000 visitors, and there will be many more at other shows in January. It’s not pretty, but that’s the reality. I would like to embed myself in the argument that people here want to give one of their own a second chance. Something like this: “You hurt the community, sowed hatred, abolished solidarity with those in need of protection, gave reach to dangerous conspiracy myths, but after your performative remorse we will welcome you back into our midst.”
But it can be assumed that a lot of the support that the rapper is now receiving around the event is not despite his gaffes, but precisely because of those above him. And that just puts you in a really bad mood.
Post Scriptum
By the way, the Xavier Naidoo comeback is just the tip of the shit mountain. In 2026, for example, Frei.Wild, who had hoped for eternal damnation, will be back on stage again. They were just missing. But things will only get really scary when Der Wendler becomes health minister at some point. Okay, it shouldn’t be that bad after all. However, there is less and less that can be ruled out in these times…
What happened so far? Here is an overview of all the pop column texts.
