ECHO Gone

The German music awards prize....the ECHO...was terminated yesterday.  In the entertainment industry of Germany...this was a page-one type story.  Focus, the German news magazine covered part of this.

What started this discussion and final act?  This year's winners in rap-music....Kollegah and Farid Bang.  Their song, released in the last twelve months which had a line that suggested anti-Semitic wording got national notice and got them to the winner's circle.  Unfortunately, it led to a chaotic night at the awards.....where a lot of German musicians made it clear that this group was a bad choice to pick for the winner.

A lot of the vote trend has to do with air-time...so that played into this.

The guys who run the awards....said three things were at the heart of the decision.

First, several previous winners had given up their awards and sent them back to the organizers.

Second, public pressure.

Third, internal discussion occurred with the award crew, and their discomfort in going forward for 2019.

So I sit there and ponder upon this discussion.

The history of rap....doesn't matter if you use Germany, the UK, or the US....has often involved lyrics that invoke violence, homophobia, or women (sometimes in a negative light).  Rap has been around for forty years, and evolution has occurred....while the topics of songs don't change much.

Will something like the ECHO be developed for 2019?  My humble guess is yes.  But they will focus strictly on one style of music to prevent rap from coming.  The problem here is that the ECHO awards were the one big event where various German musicians could gather, chat, party, and mingle.  In some ways, you need an event like this. 

Will the stations now hinder rap music from play-time?  No one says that.  But there's been so much negativity dragged up over the topics I mentioned....that I can't see this open-door continuing.  Someone will likely make an accusation of less play-time and then some other scandal will start up.

How big was the rap scene in Germany?  That's an open question.  You can't cite legit numbers.  A lot of the rap community have connections to Turk-Germans.  Most of the big names in German rap....are Turk-Germans. 

So you come to the final question.....will rappers now suggest that the German music crowd are behaving in a childish way?  My guess is that a rap or two will come out....to suggest this.  The crowd might decide to have their own awards, and broadcast via the internet (no public or commercial TV network would touch this at present). 

My final observation....this was a moral call by the ECHO management crowd, and no one will fault them.  But oddly, rap has been often vulgar and treading on thin ice in Germany for over twenty years....and just now, there's enough hype and moral backbone to make this move?  That's the funny part to this story.