Yes, the evening hasn’t really started yet, the deepest night has already fallen over Osnabrück. It’s not only extraordinarily cold, but also extraordinarily rainy this Friday, and so we meet for the warm-up in one of the most beautiful hotel bars in the city, where Locke sits near the fireplace, first taking on his Moscow Mule and then the matter of the arrest warrant, his documentary and the entire resulting dilemma.
Between Netflix documentary, bourgeoisie and street reality
The thing, says Locke, is that arrest warrant has reached a mass audience with his extremely successful Netflix documentary “Babo” that goes far beyond the actual target audience. Instead of streets and subculture, Locke says, arrest warrants are now again a topic of conversation among the middle class, in the so-called middle of society, where the documentary is interpreted primarily as a “monument” to drug use. And the logic of the bourgeois middle is now also accompanied by expectations from the bourgeois middle.
After this film, Locke concludes, one now expects a reformed arrest warrant; a man who publicly says how bad drugs are and that children should please stay away from the stuff. Which in itself is the right message, but a bit too simple – at least for someone who has been using since the age of 13 and comes from the street.
Locke knows these things because Locke is also someone who comes from the streets. Here in Osnabrück he is something like the unofficial godfather of the city. A few years ago he appeared in public as a gangsta rapper, moved in some of the same circles as the arrest warrant had moved at the time, knows Aykut Anhan, as his real name is, from his early days in Frankfurt and therefore knows that the whole thing in these very circles is a little more complex than the answers that are now expected. There’s a man sitting at the bar who looks like a plainclothes police officer. He drinks a non-alcoholic beer and closes his eyes. A few business people warm their hands by the fireplace.
The club, the expectations and the escalating night
Arrest Warrant must now submit to the logic of the industry, says Locke – the very industry that made him continue to be on stage, at a time when he was so full of drugs, with cocaine in his nose and laughing gas in his lungs, with so much poison in his blood, that he was no longer able to do exactly that: stand on stage. There was great outrage when the images went viral in which arrest warrant had to stop a performance after a few seconds because he lost his balance and orientation. But the show must go on – and the show follows the rules of the industry. And they are now expecting a clean-cut image, an educational arrest warrant that warns against drugs, but which will no longer be the arrest warrant that the street wants.
“Arrest warrant is perhaps too authentic for Germany. They only accept that here up to a certain point. That’s his dilemma. And that’s exactly the shit that’s going to tear the boy apart now,” Locke concludes his philosophical reflections and takes another sip of the Moscow Mule. Thoughts that you also have, a few hours before the first official arrest warrant appearance after the documentary was broadcast. It’s supposed to be a club show today. Here in Osnabrück. And of course many questions still remain unanswered. After the arrest warrant made his addiction very public, people want to know what happens next, whether he’s made it, whether he’s clean, what his next steps are – and whether they’re heading towards the abyss or hopefully away from it again. Every new sign of life, every Instagram post is exploited by the media.
We go to the smoking area, where things are a little wilder. A young woman in a black dress yells at a tall, overweight guy. The gorilla’s eyes are pretty glassy and he listens to the insults without moving, until at some point he seems to have had enough of the screaming and takes a quick swing and knocks the woman to the ground. For a moment it becomes very quiet. But the brutal violence against the girl doesn’t seem to really shock people. As if it were something completely ordinary. Or maybe it’s just the shock of the unexpected. After a few seconds, the first boys finally react, attack the gorilla and try to take him down with insults. Without success. The fat man simply pushes his opponents away with his weight. Only when the bouncers arrive can the guy be removed from the store. “Welcome to Osnabrück,” says Locke. The scene will remain the topic of conversation of the evening. The guy will probably never enter this club again.
“Just slapped a woman away,” someone commented. “Did you see how far it flew?” a girl asks her boyfriend. “What an asshole.” So that’s the setting. Arrest Warrant will perform in front of an audience that is definitely more street than bourgeois, but at least has dressed up properly.
Violence, chaos and an audience in a state of emergency
It is now 12:30 a.m. and we have found ourselves in the so-called press area – a cordoned off area on the gallery that allows a view of the really extraordinarily beautiful club. Locke begins to change his plans very quickly. He lets a few good-looking blonde women into the VIP area and escorts unsuitable journalists back out. We are ROLLING STONE, he says, and ultimately the right energy has to prevail. So we put bottles on the table: Belvedere with Red Bull. The evening goes on like this.
Then suddenly an arrest warrant appears on the scene. Sooner than expected. It’s 1:15 a.m. He continues to keep his face hidden; Whether he has now been able to reconstruct his nose, which probably collapsed due to cocaine consumption, remains unknown. Nevertheless: From what you can see, arrest warrant looks good – at least better, the other journalists present wrote in their note-taking apps – than in the last public photos of him. They showed him to be overweight, unhealthy and very bloated. Now he has lost a lot of weight again. When the first videos of the performance circulated on social networks, there was even speculation as to whether that was really an arrest warrant that was on stage. But there is no doubt about it: this is an arrest warrant.
The mini set, the energy and the 15 minute demolition
Within seconds the party turns into one big mosh pit. Arrest warrant is on stage with a large entourage who carry most of the show for him, but in fact his pure presence, accompanied by the ultra-hard beats from the tape, is enough to transform the ballroom into a brutal cauldron. The bass that booms out of the speakers uncompromisingly crushes everything.
He starts his mini set with “Chabos know who Babo is”. Then a short interim announcement. “You may have seen my documentary,” arrest warrant calls out to the audience. “What I wanted to say: I’m clean,” he says, before he performs all the songs, which either just deal with the sale or the excessive consumption of the very drug that he no longer wants or is allowed to have anything to do with. “You see,” says Locke, who had already somehow foreseen all this, and points out the striking contradiction that all this seems to be.
But contradictions are part of pop culture. Follow “Roll with my best“, “069” and finally “RADW”. I’m standing with my back against the wall, hand on my cock / Others on the Ballermann, whole body tense / Back against the wall, poison in my hand / Baba material, Digga, tick the crystal. A warrant best-of in the high-energy version. The mood remains explosive. For a brief moment you think: This is so charged – if this were a film, it would end in a purge. “Make a circle,” arrest warrant gets his audience in the mood for the next, even harder mosh pit before each new song. And at the same time warns: “Watch your noses.” And when the mood is at its peak, everything ends again. The logic this evening is absolutely captivating. The official arrest warrant comeback is a 15-minute, excessive state of emergency.
Giessen show and the way forward
Arrest warrant goes off stage, and the party consequently just continues – just without the rage. People are now dancing to Chris Brown or Jay-Z again, the alcohol level is rising, and the mood remains high. Locke orders a few more drinks. In the smoking area, people alternate between talking about the warrant appearance and the fight. Then other topics gradually come to the fore.
The next day an arrest warrant will appear in Giessen. There he will no longer speak on stage, but will just throw a few banknotes into the audience. A few more articles will appear. And then the world will continue to turn, new things will be discussed and new projection surfaces will be found. And an arrest warrant? He will have to find his own way. Somewhere between the demands from outside and the demons within, while the party just keeps going.