Berlin-Pankow, a quiet street, benches, flower pots. Hidden in a backyard, you take the elevator to the top and end up in one of the most renowned studios in Germany, the Krauts: gold records, superhero figures, old sound equipment, vintage records. Seeed were here, Peter Fox’s last album was made here – and also Marterias Plates.
Marten Laciny, that’s his real name, has been shaping German rap for more than a decade. With songs like “Purple Clouds” and “OMG!” he opened up the genre, away from battle rap and street realism, towards more personal, poetic lyrics.
He just came from Asia, tanned. Not a handshake, a tight hug. “Let’s have another smoke and then we can get started.” The promo phase is currently starting. Interview appointments, social media postings. Marten does all this and at the same time talks about how much it annoys him. “Too much marketing that is no longer decided by the artists.” He makes decisions based on feeling, not strategy. “It’s not marketing, it’s music.”
Six years of Hartz IV, you can’t tell anyone what we ate
No different with his new album. “Third parts always suck,” says Marten, referring to the western part of “Back to the Future III,” the film from which the title of his trilogy is based. He never wanted to do a third part. But at some point Marteria simply had enough songs that fit together and fit into the context of the two previous albums.
“Fortunately in the Future III” was created backwards, so to speak. This is most evident in a personal trilogy: the songs about his son. It begins in 2010 with “Louis,” a song about a father who pays a price for his career, that of constant absence. Four years later, “Louis is coming,” a song Marten wrote in the hospital shortly before his son was born. And now – Louis, stage name Luzey, raps himself. “Space for both of us” is the name of the joint track and is the only feature on the new album: “Good time daddy, but mom was there in the winter too.”
“I think it’s great,” comments Marten. “I would have written the same way if I were him.”
The hard way to the top
The beginning wasn’t easy for Marteria. He also worked as a party MC at the Matrix, one of Berlin’s notorious large discos. Arafat and Bushido were on the guest list at that time. He himself earned 80 euros a night, with a made-up tax number and a single real skill: a speed rap verse by Busta Rhymes that he had prepared for the hip-hop floor. “I wasn’t a good host. But it made a bit of money,” he says with a laugh. He couldn’t live on that.
“Six years of Hartz IV, three apartments lost in Berlin. You can’t tell anyone what we ate,” remembers Marten.
From the job center to the Columbiahalle
There was a woman responsible for him at the Mitte job center, Ms. Frecke. “I said: Hey, I want to make music.” She could have said many things, but she supported him: “Go for it!” He played concerts in front of a handful of people. Once in Halle an der Saale in front of exactly one guest. The organizer was angry. Marteria played anyway. “You only have negative shit, hardly any bright spots, sometimes a good review in Juice or something. A rejection every other day.” And then: “Suddenly this boom moment comes when it works.”
Rap culture has always been a very political culture
Years later he is on the stage at Columbiahalle. 3500 visitors. Sold out. He looks up at the rank. His mother is sitting there. And next to her: Ms. Frecke with her family. “Sometimes you just need people like that in your life,” says Marteria. At first he was interested in recognition. Today it is the music itself, art and creativity. But today, he believes, much of current pop culture is pretty irrelevant.
“Pop or rap culture has always been a very political culture,” Marten explains. That was lost. He also tells political stories on his album: “Captain Europa” is a superhero who stands alone in front of a water cannon. Or “Babylonia”, created on Koh Phangan when Israeli soldiers were celebrating on the beach and he knew where they came from. “At the end of the day, I’m a journalist too. I observe the world and translate it into rhymes.”
The album reflects his observations of the world, but also his own life. “This is my therapy,” he says. “This is my way of somehow coping with this life.” The song (and single) “Sad Holiday” is about a breakup on vacation, one that happened to himself. “You still have that one great night, but you know it’s actually all too late,” he says. In the song, Marteria raps: “It’s not a holiday trip, it’s just hell and back.” One automatically thinks of Marten’s brief arrest three years ago in the USA on allegations of domestic violence. The case was dropped shortly afterwards without charges, and Marten would not comment further today.
The fear is spreading
The world has shifted since the last “Fortunately in the Future” album. Not suddenly, more gradually, but noticeable. “Fear is the king of this world right now,” says Marten. “That’s where all the arrows go.”
Marteria’s condition description. The basic tension has increased, as has the irritability. Conversations change more quickly, positions harden more quickly. And sometimes the conversations don’t even happen. “That you don’t feel like talking about things because you’re afraid of causing offense somewhere.”
This is evident not only in large debates, but in small, private ways. At Christmas, for example, when after a few fruit drinks the political discussions start and suddenly there is more at stake than just an argument at the dinner table. Families drift apart, sometimes permanently. With himself too. His mother no longer speaks to her brother. “People are tearing themselves apart right now because they are so afraid and worried about finding their place in this world.”
What Marten describes is a climate of uncertainty in which demarcation quickly arises. “In East Germany it’s 40 percent, not four. You can’t avoid knowing them. They don’t really reflect on it, they just tick the AfD,” says Marten, taking a short breath. “It’s like a dreamcatcher, it just catches people’s fears.”
The lessons from Lichtenhagen
As I said, he comes from Rostock. In 1992, a mob of thousands of people besieged an asylum seekers’ home in Lichtenhagen for days, throwing Molotov cocktails while residents applauded and the police failed. Images that shaped an entire generation. Marten was ten years old at the time. During his school days, he was often told off because kids from Vietnam or Ukraine came to his class and he stood in front of them. “If someone pisses off someone because they come from somewhere different or look different, then they’re pissing me off too. I defend what I love. I won’t let that ruin me.”
AfD is like a dreamcatcher, it simply captures people’s fears
His alternative to fear: focus on the good, on similarities instead of differences. “Let’s find the cool things, let’s find the similarities. A lot of people forget that.” He himself sometimes thinks about emigrating, moving away, just getting out. “No, I don’t mind. I want it to be hot again here. If 50 percent are assholes, then think about the other 50 percent. And also about the fact that you’re not always on the right side.”
S-Bahn trains pass by outside. Inside we talk about his album title. Marten explains that it can be read in two ways: You want to be lucky in the future. Or: Luckily there is a future at all. “Everything is so dark right now,” he says. “But we live the craziest life. Running freely through Berlin, driving an Uber from club to club and eating whatever we want.”
Ms. Frecke lives somewhere in Berlin, and she may have imagined something like this when the young guy from Rostock sat in front of her in the job center and said he wanted to make music.
How Marten looks at this time today, why he volunteered for the Bundeswehr and the untold stories behind songs like “Lila Wolken” and “OMG!” still stuck, he says in a big video interview – from Wednesday on ROLLING STONE YouTube channel.
