Suddenly Mero was there. On Friday on the stage in the sports hall Hamburg. But also quite fundamentally. In November he released his first single "Baller los", in spring the first album "Ya Hero Ya Mero", last week already his second album "Unikat". For streaming services and the charts, Mero broke records. And everything went so fast. Therefore, Mero and his fans can not believe it all. Not even on Friday night.
Throughout the concert, smartphones float above the crowd. As if they wanted to prove that everything is really happening. The sports hall, a single sea of white mobile phone light. If you do not film with your device, you're waving it in the air, the way people used to throw lighters at concerts, until the friction wheel got so hot that you burned yourself.
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Mero live in Hamburg: With the smartphone upwardsThe smartphone plays a much more important role this evening. It is, so to speak, the centerpiece of the Mero narrative.
In the sports hall, Mero spits fire when he raps. Strong voice, high speed, yet precise. But instead of moving to the music, many fans are highly concentrated, trying to shake free mobile phone recordings. The stage design: huge smartphone screens that entertain during the performance with apps that thematically somehow fit to running tracks, or not.
When Mero votes for "Maldives", Google Maps opens the map of Rüsselsheim, Mero's Hessian homeland, then someone enters the island state as their destination. Again and again the old mobile phone videos of Mero run on the displays. The show even starts with the iphone speech recognition software Siri: "Did you say Mero?" Screaming. "I can not understand you." Even more shrieks. "Ok, which song of Mero should I play?". Screeching becomes unpronounceable. "Baller los of Mero is played." Escalation.
Smartphones everywhere, because: without a smartphone, no Mero
Mero is the 19-year-old young man who trained and played football before his rap career, then uploaded videos on Youtube and Instagram. The boy, who was then noticed rap businessman Xatar and was heavily marketed in social media before its first publication. The then so booted that some suspect of disbelief over purchased clicks.
When asked fans this evening what they like about Mero, some of them find it difficult to express their fascination. Others who create the rudimentary answers:
"Most can either sing or rap, he can do both." (Vanessa, 18 years old)
or
"He raps in his own way." (Serkan, 19 years old)
But many also answer like this:
"He grew up very fast." (Daniel, 21 years old)
or
"That he was there at once." (Jonas, 17 years old)
or
"That he became so famous so fast at that age." (Lava, 20 years)
A universal hip hop motif
Mero's story is a pretty unrealistic ascendancy story. The story of a longed-for, but unexpected ascent. "Who of you still knows my mobile videos?" Mero asks his fans at some point between two songs. "I started using mobile phone videos, not even a year ago."
What he actually says: Everyone has a smartphone, anyone can make videos, anyone can upload them on Youtube. In short, anyone can do it. "From the curb to the skyline", this actually universal hip-hop motif was still called Bushido's time. Mero updates the narrative now; according to the current digital reality. The smartphone is the ubiquitous possibility of sudden ascension. One carries this possibility in the trouser pocket always with itself.
