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Singer Elif: Amazing reinvention in the German rap genre
Photo: Till van Loosen
"People are starting to imitate my style: short hair and everything black," says Elif Demirezer in a short documentary that appeared a few days ago.
She walks down a hall, looks lively and very busy, smiles mischievously: "Who knows ... I've become a trendsetter."
A few years ago, singer Elif seemed to be chasing trends.
In 2009, at the age of 16, she was runner-up in the casting show "Popstars", and since then she has tried to find a place among German pop stars such as Tim Bendzko and Andreas Bourani with two solo albums.
The most successful of 2013 was her single "Under my skin".
Elif's songwriting has always been more demanding, darker than the mood poetry of many colleagues, in 2019 she was awarded the Gema Music Author's Prize for it.
Their music, however, always seemed overly generic and arbitrary.
Until now.
Elif's third album "Nacht" will be released on Friday.
It marks the preliminary climax of a reinvention - something that is actually not foreseen in German pop with its firmly established genres and camps.
But it is not for nothing that Elif compares herself - as self-confident as she is flirtatious - with the US singer Taylor Swift, who has transformed from a country girl to a pop icon.
Demirezer, born in 1992 as a child of Turkish immigrants in Berlin-Moabit, not only shortened her long girlish hair, she also ended a love affair, changed her management and the record company.
A radical cut.
On Instagram and YouTube, where half of her new songs have already been published, she is celebrated by female and male fans for her music and her image change.
Berlin hit producers like the Beatgees worked with her to develop an urban sound, more oriented towards German rap and hip-hop, which goes well with her deep and distinctively passionate singing voice, with which she is now also trying out spoken singing.
Together with the popular rapper Samra in the scene, she recorded the successful duet "Zu Ende" at the beginning of the year - her ticket to a new world of music in which she fills a vacancy: German emo rap.
In her video clips, Elif shows herself as a night owl who confronts herself and her environment with dark character traits.
However, when she comes to the interview in Berlin-Friedrichshain, her neighborhood, she wears a wide, white blouse.
"Everything is black underneath," she laughs and lifts her shirt for a moment.
"But it's summer and I wanted to look a little friendlier."
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Elif 2013 in the Munich Olympiahalle: At the beginning of her career, the "Popstars" second tried generic German pop
Photo: Felix Hörhager / picture alliance / dpa
With just as much openness, she tells how the changes in her life and career came about.
After the Gema Prize and her participation as a guest singer on Peter Maffay's Unplugged Tour in front of a large audience, in 2019, after ten years in the music business, everything seemed to be going well: "It was amazing to see how big something can be when you're right at the top, "she says of the concerts with the old rocker.
But then came the burnout.
"I've worked so much and invested so much over the last few years, but it hasn't turned out as much as I had hoped. It does something to you, you doubt yourself."
"I was looking for identity: Who am I now? Am I Turkish, am I German?"
Elif went into therapy.
Today, she says, she has resolved a lot of things for herself: "The self-confidence is back. I am now the woman I always wanted to be. I probably had to go through the shit first."
Above all, she has often ignored part of her identity in the past, and too often has taken the path of least resistance: "I pushed my Turkish side aside for a long time. I was looking for identity: Who am I now? Am I Turkish, am I German? I went to the other extreme, and then my music also sounded so German. "
Now she's naturally also incorporating Turkish words into her songs.
Of course, the zeitgeist benefits her: The popularity of German rapeseed, which is influenced by migrants, makes it cool and attractive today to show one's Turkish roots as an artist.
"That would not have been possible five years ago."
When she recently showed herself on Instagram in a sports bikini, there were commentators who want to forbid her so much freedom of movement: she was dishonorable and a shame for her parents.
Your father only saw this post later.
"He then called me and really fucked up."
Even earlier, in the ballad "Doppelleben", she addressed the conflict between the Muslim tradition of her family and her desire for freedom.
Her new song "Alaska" picks up on there: "Baba says I don't have a good reputation / I've tried too many guys / Mom says there's a curse on me / Can only fail, no matter what I do" .
In "Alles helal" she rebels against the Islamic precept of virtue, according to which women, like Elif, who smoke, drink or show skin in public, are "haram", forbidden.
Helal is everything that is allowed.
"I take the risk that people won't talk to me anymore, but I'll stand by myself," says Elif.
"My father has to deal with that, I didn't undress for 'Playboy'. I like my body, I think I look pretty."
Her parents used to be very conservative, today, says Elif, they are relaxed.
"They can't tell me that they don't have a desire for freedom. My mother has often told me, Elif, if I were you, I would do it ten times more blatantly, she just doesn't dare."
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Label: Jive Germany (Sony Music)
Label: Jive Germany (Sony Music)
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She used to get in trouble at home because she went out with boys.
"My father always said: know your worth. But my older brother was allowed anything, while I was not allowed to do anything."
That's probably why she fell in love all too often with men, "weird types", who treated her badly.
"I did not feel my worth. I told my father that too: You said to me, you know your worth, but you did not treat me valuable. Do you know what that caused?"
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Musician Elif: At the age of twelve she was already playing songs on the guitar, listening to Nirvana and Linkin Park
Photo: Jörg Carstensen / picture alliance / dpa
But she doesn't hold a grudge against her father or her ex-boyfriend, with whom she sharp-tongued accounts in the song "Nur mir".
With this relaxed but also offensive attitude, will she become a trendsetter, i.e. a role model for other young and migrant women?
"First and foremost, I just want to say what I feel. I have good sides, but also bad ones," she says and laughs.
You can tell how much she enjoys her freedom and the newfound self-acceptance.
This charisma is difficult to escape from on her album.
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