For over twenty years, young inmates of the Berlin Junior Criminal Center have had the opportunity to make music with professional help. The latest project is called liability – and recently gave a remarkable concert within the youth criminal investment.
It is a sunny spring day in Berlin when I walk the last few meters on foot to the youth criminal investment in Charlottenburg-Nord, past the main building, whose high walls are secured with NATO wire, a special variant of barbed wire, with which such high-security measures are often secured. When admission, I am warmly greeted and pointed out that all cell phones have to be handed in during the show – to protect the anonymity of the occupants that will be on stage today. After checking ID, we are guided to the hall by officials, always three to four people at once.
I enter a large multi -purpose hall with a few hundred chairs. In the background the music that we can hear live is already running. The room gradually fills up. Among the guests are many well-known faces from the hip-hop and music scene. Peter Fox takes a few places next to me. Nico von Kiz, rapper Megaloh, the producers of The Krauts and Hip-Hop-Podcaster Rooz have also come. I briefly chat with Jörn Hedke, the creative director and co-organizer of the project, with which I will have a detailed interview a few days after the event (more on this below).
liable: texts about remorse, longing, dreams
Around 4 p.m. after a few short, introductory words from headmistress Birgit Lang Aka Bila, the show begins. On the stage – alternately and in different constellations – four young rappers, all of them are estimated not older than 22 years. They are inmates of the JSA. You don’t find out what they are called – not even why they are here. However, it can be guessed at the texts. At the beginning, the more classic street rap happens musically, which, however, gets a completely different severity within this context. Textually, much less muscle are flexed here than that your own past and the present is processed. It is about the narrowness of the cell, the rumors that flash in the window. About remorse, longing and dreams of a loved one outside of these walls. Once there is talk of robbery, and even without knowing the musicians’ cases, it is clear that this must be something coarser as a shop theft.
But it doesn’t stay with pure street rap, it also becomes a little pop -heavy. Later Hedke joins the piano and on the guitar, too, his daughter too Purpleherself a singer and songwriter, is with several songs and supports the musicians with her strong voice; One of the songs also comes from her. After about an hour it is over, the applause is more than just appreciative. “Leave them free,” calls one person in the audience.
The origins of the project
A few days later, I call crown for more than two hours, a multi-instrumentalist, veteran of the German hip-hop scene (see: Das Department and Brother & Kronstädta) and versatile indie musician-and a man with many functions in the project. He acts as a producer, mentor, organizer and educator, but also as a respect for the boys. Crown, he emphasizes, but is by no means the only one to owe this project. The initial spark for this came from Lang, the headmistress of the Helmuth Hübner School of the JSA Berlin and, as Krone says, the “primeval mother of the project”. At that time, JSA inmates approached them and asked them about the opportunity to record music. She started the project with an old cassette recorder and a cheap department store microphone.
“Bila was completely flashed when she saw the first texts,” says Hedke. “The boys had a huge bundle of material – well written, disciplined, at an astonishing level. It was immediately clear: there is more.” She quickly realized that she would reach limits with the cassette recorder – and that the project would have to be lifted to a completely different level. But because long, unlike Hedke, was not networked in the hip-hop scene, she was looking for someone to develop the musically and professionally. At that time, Hedke was already working for Gangway, a Berlin street worker organization, and had an international experience with workshops: “I had a lot for the Goethe Institute, was sent through the world as a workshop service provider-Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand,” he says. “I played concerts there, often connected to workshops, and was therefore already deep in this type of work – especially with young people who do not come from a middle -class environment.”
The first project resulting was Gittaspitta – and met with lively interest in the music industry. Hip-hop out of jail? That sounded real and more than marketable, especially in the street rap ethos. But it quickly became clear that marketing was hardly possible. The legal hurdles were too high: detainees must not achieve any significant income, their identities must remain protected, appearances or promoter dates are excluded.
From gittaspitta to liability
The project is still running twenty years later. Hedke describes the guys from liability as intelligent and very open and keen to experiment when it comes to music. “I also taught one of the boys a little piano,” says Hedke. “I give instrumental lessons if someone feels like.” The young man is extremely open musically: “He said from the beginning: I love rap, I love hip-hop-but also pop, rock, alternative music. This is a stroke of luck for me. Firstly because it meets my own taste-I often find these very puristic hip-hop approaches. And secondly, this is a very pragmatic approach: he wants him to listen to him. Are hip-hop people or not. “
(In the picture above: Jörn Hedke)
“For reasons of re-socialization, it is also desirable not to remain in the typical gangsta rap rail,” continued Hedke. “But to say: listen to other things, try it out. Discover new music styles for you. The greater the bandwidth, the greater the chance to gain a foothold somewhere.”
No censorship in the texts
I want to know whether there were any limits or a red pencil from the texts. Hedke denied. Text work is very free. Of course, not everything is allowed, for example, calls for violence would have no place. “But that has never been an issue so far. They want to get rid of something. They want to express themselves. And that is often very personal, very reflected.” The texts are all autobiographical, of course with the artistic freedom, sometimes to compress something for dramaturgical reasons. For the JSA inmates, the text is an important process: “This was also confirmed by the psychologists: very, very much happens during text work.”
Hedke and Lang’s work goes far beyond the music project liable. Together they are also responsible for the podcast Two-thirds Fm – A format that sends directly from the Berlin youth prison. Young detainees tell about everyday life behind bars, talk about experiences, routines, dreams and fears. “Many of the songs that you have now heard of liable, were also created as part of this podcast,” says Hedke. “We even won a media prize-as the only independent producer, between ProSieben and other large providers.” The concerts always get prominent support: In addition to Rap greats, Herbert Grönemeyer and Udo Lindenberg showed themselves in the audience.
Hedke and Lang, there is no doubt for me in the evening in the JSA – and after talking to him – with their work, make a great and important contribution: They create a creative freedom of development for young people who would otherwise be denied them within the narrow prison cells. They enable the inmates to express their problematic experiences and living conditions without educational index fingers and without a stimulating reel formula in rap. They create space for self -reflection – and for self -empowerment. A valve, but also a possible future perspective.