Press release
On Thursday, Israel observed the annual Yom HaShoah – the day on which the six million Jews murdered under the Nazi dictatorship are commemorated.
At the very same time, the Echo Award 2018 of the Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V. (BVMI, the German music industry association) was presented in Berlin to the rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang. On their current album they rap that their own bodies are more defined than those of Auschwitz inmates, and a further line invokes staging another Holocaust and turning up with a Molotov cocktail.
In this repellent manner the rappers are making money at the expense of the victims of Auschwitz, in the service of their own pursuit of scandal. It was for their commercial success that they were given an award.
Above all, we thank the singers Peter Maffay and Campino of Die Toten Hosen for their courage in raising their voices against antisemitism, both before and during the event.
Only today did the Chairman of the BVMI, Dr Florian Drücke, address the public by way of a press release, evidently in response to considerable public and media pressure. In it he explains that the Echo will now undergo a comprehensive review and that the mechanisms governing nomination and the awarding of the prize will be reformed.
What we also read is that the BVMI is worried about the reputation of the award:
“In the course of the current debate we have had to recognise that we find ourselves in an environment that casts the award in a false light,” said Drücke.
Elio Adler, the Chairman of the WerteInitiative: “We can see here neither an apology for the fact that this appalling spectacle was allowed to take place, nor an apology to the victims of the Shoah. Is the BVMI working according to the same mechanisms as the rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang? Along the lines of: put out a few small fires, but fundamentally acknowledge no serious mistakes of one’s own? Dr Drücke, your statement is not enough!” This accolade has damaged not only the award itself, but also Germany’s standing at home and abroad.
The BVMI could now show courage by stripping the rappers of the award – not only for the passages mentioned above, but also for the otherwise antisemitic conduct of Mr Felix Blume (alias Kollegah), who in his videos publishes, among other things, the devil bearing a Star of David, and ugly antisemitic caricatures resembling those of the Nazi era. People such as Felix Blume bear a share of the blame when Jewish pupils are hounded and attacked in school playgrounds. For the future, the BVMI should ensure transparently that such a disgraceful accolade never occurs again.
Together with the rapper Ben Salomo, the WerteInitiative had already criticised the ceremony in advance: https://werteinitiative.de/en/joint-statement-with-jewish-rapper-ben-salomo/
