German #5: Sido "Hey Du"

When I checked out the new songs in the German top 10 and saw that the highest ranking song I have not reviewed so far was Sido's new entry Hey Du, I braced myself for the worst. Sido's rap is certainly not original and definitely not skillful.

The words come out like a machine gun staccato in a barrack yard on a rainy day with the smell of vomit hanging in the air and this angry undertone is supposedly the reason why he is one of the most successful rappers in today's Germany. Or expressed in a less flowery way: you always have the impression the guy is struggling with the concept of uttering words.



Hey Du is not very different in that respect and the Berlin dialect chorus feels stupid.
I do admit, however, that the lyrics about his childhood - moving from the East to the West of Germany, having trouble in the humble circumstances the family had to settle with - has relevance and is more than this brainless chatter that is streaming through the charts far too often.