Bushido Album
Michele Firmasyah
The judges decided that the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons had not carefully weighed the arguments between youth protection and artistic freedom when it classified the album as inappropriate for minors in 2015.
In 2016, the Cologne Administrative Court had initially confirmed the classification. Even if the album was recognized as a "work of art," the case for youth protection was stronger, the judges had argued.
Bushido has long caused controversy due to his sexist, racist and homophobic lyrics, his glorification of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, and alleged mocking of Charlie Hebdo victims; he has also spent time in an Austrian jail for assault.
Indeed, among the collaborators on the album were battle rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang, who have stirred a massive recent controversy due to anti-Semitic lyrics that nonetheless won them the Echo Prize for best album.
Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons justified the initial classification by saying that the lyrics glorify violence and a criminal lifestyle. In addition, many passages were hostile to women and homosexuals. An "ironic context," or a distancing of the artist from violence and crime, was not recognizable.
On the contrary, lyrics like "Guck, die Ghettokids, sie nehmen meine Lebensweise an" ("Look, the ghetto kids, they accept my way of life") show that he deliberately targeted his messages to minors; and that there was a strong likelihood that young people would adopt the many pejorative terms used by Bushido.
However in the Mnster court, the 39-year-old rapper successfully argued that adolescents are routinely exposed to more realistic portrayals of violence and sex in today's media than in his deliberately over-hyped gangster rap imagery.
23 is a collection of Bushido and Sido songs which was released on October 14, 2011 in three versions: Standard, Premium and Deluxe. The album reached number 1 in the German Amazon music charts and hip-hop charts.[1]
Anis Mohamed Youssef Ferchichi (born 28 September 1978), better known as Bushido, is a German rapper. The word "bushido" is Japanese and means "Way of the Warrior". He also uses the pseudonym Sonny Black, based on Dominic Napolitano. As of 2009, he sold more than 1.5 million albums in Germany alone.[1] He is the owner of the record label ersguterjunge and entrepreneur in the real estate industry.[2]
Bushido was born of a Tunisian father and a German mother in Bad Godesberg, a small town, part of Bonn in West Germany. Shortly after, his family moved to Berlin. Bushido grew up with his mother and brother, in Berlin-Tempelhof district of former West Berlin. He attended Eckener Gymnasium up to the tenth grade, then changed to another gymnasium before leaving school early,[3] and accumulated a criminal record for drug possession and vandalism. A judge ordered him to attend vocational training as a painter or face a jail term. During the training as a painter, he met and made friend with rapper Fler. Bushido sprayed graffiti under the pseudonym "Fuchs" (fox).[4]
On 21 October 2002 Bushido and Fler released the collaboration album Carlo, Cokxxx, Nutten. They used the pseudonyms "Sonny Black" and "Frank White", which they took from the films Donnie Brasco and King Of New York. Bushido's pseudonym may be a nod to his American musical influence; in that country, Sonny Black was the mafia nickname of notorious Bonanno crime family mobster Dominick Napolitano.On 14 July 2003 he released his first solo album, Vom Bordstein bis zur Skyline.
In summer 2004, due to differences,[citation needed] he left Aggro Berlin and signed with Urban/Universal. Together with DJ Ilan, he produced a remix of the industrial metal group Rammstein's song "Amerika".In 25 October 2004 he released his second solo album, Electro Ghetto, which reached number six on the German charts. Three singles from the album were released: "Electro Ghetto" (DE #31, 9 weeks),[5] "Nie wieder" (DE #31, 9 weeks)[5] and "Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt" (DE #29, 8 weeks).[6]
On 4 April 2005 he released his second collaboration album Carlo Cokxxx Nutten II, once again using his alter ego "Sonny Black" but this time recording with Baba Saad rather than Fler. On 4 November 2005 released his third solo album, Staatsfeind Nr. 1.
In January 2008 it became known that Bushido and an unknown partner had founded a real estate business. It yielded a million Euros in the first ten months.[2] Bushido released his autobiography Bushido on 8 September, which reached number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list.[8] His eighth album, Heavy Metal Payback on 10 October 2008.[citation needed]The video for the single "Fr immer jung" caused some controversy because MTV stopped airing it after two days of heavy rotation. The main editorial office decided that the feature with Czech musician Karel Gott didn't fit the image of MTV. In a meeting with Bushido, the chief editors offered to air the video on their other music channel, Viva, but Bushido didn't agree and later forbade MTV and Viva from airing his videos because he couldn't reconcile this with his conscience. Bushido wrote in his forum about the topic:[9]
habe lange an diesem Freitag berlegt. (...) fr mich stellte sich einfach nur die Frage ob ich diesen Betrug hinnehmen oder die einzige logische Konsequenz treffen soll. (...) und deswegen habe ich auf MTV geschissen. Egal was passiert, ich bernehme die volle Verantwortung, aber ich kann mir und vor allem Karel Gott in die Augen gucken.
(I thought about this friday for a long time. (...) for me it was simply a question of whether I should accept this betrayal or come to the only logical consequence. (..) and that's why I left MTV. No matter what happens, I accept responsibility, but I can still look myself, and above all Karel Gott, in the eye.)
As Fler left Aggro Berlin and the label closed down on 1 April, Bushido reached out to his former partner to end their feud. The renewed friendship led to the production of a sequel to the 2002 album Carlo, Cokxxx, Nutten. The album is titled Carlo, Cokxxx, Nutten 2, as distinguished from the Carlo, Cokxxx, Nutten II sequel, recorded with Baba Saad in 2005. Carlo, Cokxxx, Nutten 2 was entirely produced by Bushido, and most of the beats were planned for the soundtrack of the movie Zeiten ndern dich. The album was released on 11 September, with the single "Eine Chance/Zu Gangsta" and the video promoting it.
The movie Zeiten ndern dich was shot in and around Berlin from 21 July to mid-September 2009. It was released on 4 February 2010. The movie is based on Bushido's autobiography, featuring Bushido as himself. Uli Edel directed and Bernd Eichinger produced it.[10] 80,000 people watched the movie on the release date.[11]The soundtrack to the movie, also titled Zeiten ndern dich, was released in three different versions on 19 February 2010.[12]
In August, Bushido reformed the group Berlins Most Wanted, which originally consisted of himself, Bass Sultan Hengzt and King Orgasmus, in 2001 during the King of KingZ era, and added Kay One and Fler to the group. Together they released the album Berlins Most Wanted with a single also called "Berlins Most Wanted".[14]
On 31 March 2011 Bushido released a video on his YouTube channel, in which he confirmed plans for a new album entitled Jenseits von Gut und Bse and the guest appearance of French rapper Booba.[15] On 19 April, his second statement video was published, where he first thanked singer J-Luv for his vocal parts on the single "Vergiss mich", which was released on 22 April in digital format along with the music video. He also presented the producers Rsonist and Benny Blanco and confirmed that Xavier Naidoo from Shne Mannheims is featured as guest performer on the song "Du bist ein Mensch".[16] His third statement video was published on 28 April on his YouTube channel. In this video, Bushido confirmed that his label mate Kay One has a guest appearance on the album, and introduced DJ Desue as producer. Bushido also announced that the song "Wie ein Lwe" could be downloaded on iTunes the following day.[17]
American record producers DJ Premier, Swizz Beatz, Araab Muzik and R'sonist each contributed one beat for the album.[18] A meeting with Dr. Dre was also intended, but Bushido cancelled due to the high price.[19] Later DJ Premier became disappointed that new vocals were added to the song "Gangster" and that his DJ-cuts were edited without giving him a chance to hear the new version before it was released. However it is unknown if this was Bushido's idea or that of his production team.[20]
In 2011, Sido and Bushido reconciled after an 6 year during dispute, and on 15 August 2011 Sony Music Entertainment stated that a collaboration album of the two rappers, titled 23, release on 14 October.[21] A teaser trailer promoting the project leaked the same day on Bushido's YouTube channel.[22] The first single "So mach ich es" released on 30 September 2011 via internet and the CD single released on 21 October. The music video released via Bushido's YouTube channel on 10 October and later the platform set an age restriction, because the video has been flagged as being inappropriate. At the Echo awards it won in the category "Bestes Video National" (Best video national).[23]
On 14 June 2012, Bushido announced in an interview with the Bild newspaper that he would found a political party with the aim of becoming mayor of Berlin.[24] The same month he completed an internship for CDU deputy Christian von Stetten in the Paul-Lbe-Haus in Berlin,[25] which led to a lot of criticism due to Bushido's controversial song lyrics and his criminal past.[26]
Bushido announced his eleventh album AMYF via Facebook, which was also available for pre-sale on Amazon. Later the track list and the iTunes version were published. The first announcement video was put online on 22 August 2012, via YouTube on his channel. Bushido confirmed that the deluxe version features a DVD which shows footage of the recording period and also announced Sido, Eko Fresh, Julian Williams (aka J-Luv), MoTrip and Joka as guest performers.[27] On 19 September 2012, Bushido released the second announcement video, in which he announced several producers, including Beatzarre, Djorkaeff, X-Plosive Beats and Phat Cripsy, and represented the other guest performers King Orgasmus One (who is only featured on the Premium edition) and Brutos Brutaloz.[28] The third and last video released on 26 September 2012, where Bushido introduced Frauenarzt and Elmo as last guest features, and announced the premiere of his music video for "Kleine Bushidos" (released via YouTube on 4 October) and the next day the song was available for any digital platform.[29] On 12 October, released AMYF and ranked No. 1 in the album chart position in Germany and Switzerland.[30]
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