Hip-hop Faces Obstacles As German Export

FRANKFURT‹The international marketing of German hip-hop is a double-edged sword, according to performers and industry experts.
The problem is not lack of talent but lack of interest on the part of the Anglo-American markets. An act who has English lyrics and enough international flavor to stand a chance automatically has to compete with top U.S. proponents of the sound, say skeptics.
Yet some here are beginning to believe that the production talent being nurtured by the current hip-hop boom could find an international audience.
One industry source says exporting an American-sounding hardcore rap act like Illmat!c (3P/Epic) to the U.S. "would be carrying owls to Athens" (or, put another way, selling ice to Eskimos), because "there are a lot of good similar acts over there."
On the other hand, tracks with lyrics entirely or mostly in German have yet to become accepted abroad as more than a novelty.
Michael "S.M.U.D.O." Schmidt, co-owner of Four Music and a member of Die Fantastischen Vier, says that German acts can succeed only if they rap in English. "The German language is not internationally acceptable," he says. "That's not a great philosophical insight, merely a marketing fact.
"Besides, I would be ashamed to try to compete in a foreign language," he adds. "There's so much good English-speaking hip-hop."
Moses Pelham, an artist and co-owner of Pelham Power Productions (3P), one of the three most successful labels and production teams in Germany, says that for the moment his company is not eyeing the international scene. "Let's talk about this in one or two years," he says. "The album 'Illastration' by [English-speaking rapper] Illmat!c is the only current 3P product that would stand a chance on the U.S. market since it crosses the language barrier. Unlike in Germany, we don't have any influence in these [other] territories yet."
Hinrich Stürken, a former product manager for Universal Music and now a freelance marketing consultant, is also unenthusiastic about the genre's potential abroad. "Sometimes even the border to neighbors like Denmark appears insurmountable for German artists." But he notes that the times may be changing: "I think the situation is opening up, and other countries are more interested in releasing German-speaking product, if the music is right."
Universal's reason for signing a licensing pact with production company Booya Music (see story, page 1) gives some indication of the genre's international outlook. Universal GSA president Heinz Canibol says the deal came about after Universal was able to cross over Pappa Bear's Germany/Switzerland/Austria (GSA) hit "Cherish" into other regions, not least the Nordic countries. Booya labelmate Nana, whose releases have gone through Motor/PolyGram, however, has had only GSA success.
"We signed the deal because they are the hottest production team," Canibol says. "Their standards are now matching those in other territories."
Also, with Booya's principals, Bülent Aris and Toni Cottura, having had international success with Fun Factory, Canibol notes, "They are not just limited to the hip-hop thing; they can change with the times."
Until now, German club music has succeeded internationally only when it used rap merely as a "decorative" element and sounded neither too German nor too hip-hop. Frankfurt-based techno/pop group Snap! on Logic Records "adopted" a rapper for "The Power," which became a U.S. hit. Yet Snap! was not a hip-hop act, and the rapper, Turbo B, was replaced by a series of female vocalists.
The same holds true for the equally successful if volatile Darmstadt-based Dance Pool/Sony act Culture Beat, featuring‹until recently‹American rapper Jay Supreme. The new Culture Beat album, aptly titled "Metamorphosis," features rapper N'XT UP, who can be heard on two tracks but is not part of the "group" lineup.
One current candidate for international success is "Tabula Rasa" by Freundeskreis & Mellowbag, a collaboration between the two German rap acts, the first of which is on Four Music/Columbia/Sony Music, the second is on Downbeat/WEA.
Harbingers of doom, meanwhile, should take courage from the success of another German-language act in another genre. A year ago, no one could have predicted the success of Motor Music's pyro-rocker group Rammstein, whose "Sehnsucht" bowed at No. 80 on The Billboard 200 (Billboard, Aug. 1) despite its all-German repertoire.