The music reacts so quickly: Eko Fresh and Soffie criticize Friedrich Merz’s cityscape statements in their songs
After Friedrich Merz used feminist concerns last week to justify his racist statement about the “cityscape” in Germany, a flood of reactions followed – but initially things remained surprisingly quiet in the ranks of German musicians. German rapper Eko Fresh is now putting an end to this, as is indie singer Soffie.
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The justified scandal surrounding the German Chancellor is particularly addressed in Eko Fresh’s new song “Friedrich”, in which it is at times directly addressed to the head of government.
“Friedrich” addresses the Chancellor directly
In the song, the Cologne native describes the lives of the daughters that Friedrich Merz allegedly wanted to protect by repatriating migrant people in Germany: “Dear Friedrich, you have really charming daughters. We do too, but ours live in holes. Junkies in the hallway, high-rise building with criminals.”
Eko Fresh also highlights the difference between the late Bonn rap legend Xatar and the former Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn. Both have a “hustle” mentality, but are treated differently: “Both give their all, want to drive a Benz.” The Turkish-born rapper addresses the poorer starting conditions and living conditions of immigrants and, with lines like “No, we’re good, we’re your cleaners, our moms are fired for a few scraps of dirt,” the musician describes the way people with a migrant background are judged – whether they’re women or not.
Eko Fresh accuses Germany and especially Chancellor Merz of everyday racism – an attitude that has been attributed to the Chancellor several times based on his recent statements. The rapper contrasts Merz’s “cityscape” with an alternative perspective and makes it clear that migrants are part of German society. According to his message, the real problem lies in migration policy and its inadequate integration strategies.
Within a very short time, the accompanying reel, which the rapper published on Instagram on October 24th, went viral. The video has 3.8 million views and the comments are in full agreement. The music video has also been viewed over a million times on TikTok and is currently number 25 in the music trend charts on YouTube.
Soffie: A spring without Merz
In 2024 she unintentionally wrote the protest song of the year: In “Forever Spring” (2024), Soffie creates a utopia in which migration, survival and security are no longer the issues of elite governments, but are fairly distributed within society. Shortly after the song was released in February, investigative journalists from “Correctiv” uncovered secret AfD meetings – from then on Soffie’s spring utopia became the anti-AfD song of the year.
Now, after Merz has clarified his political guidelines with the cityscape statement, Soffie reports back – and ironically asks: “How do you write this month again?” This is followed by an updated version of her demo hit: “I recently dreamed of a country where Merz is not part of spring.” The melody and basic idea remain the same, but the lyrics contain updates: “Colorful city, no more gray walls. Tell me, Friedrich, where does this hatred come from?” The singer draws a clear conclusion: “Daughters in power, for a colorful city.”
Merz’s statement triggers waves of outrage
At a press event on October 14th, Merz stated that the federal government was correcting previous failings in migration policy. “But of course we still have this problem in the cityscape, and that is why the Federal Minister of the Interior is now in the process of enabling and carrying out returns on a very large scale.” A few days later, the Chancellor failed to clarify his position when asked and instead said: “Ask your daughters what I could have meant by that.”
He added that the “problems” were caused by those migrants who did not have permanent residence status, did not work and did not adhere to the rules in force in Germany. Because of these statements, there were demonstrations in several German cities, and many people also expressed protest on social media.