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Bushido and his lawyer in court (archive): Crooked business in the rap scene
Photo: STR / AFP
As Bushido portrays it, he was sitting in the passenger seat of a silver Audi in Berlin-Kreuzberg when he made the pact with the devil.
It must have been between mid-June and early July 2004, he no longer knows exactly, says the rapper at the Berlin regional court.
Arafat Abou-Chaker was sitting in the driver's seat.
It is the second day of the testimony of Anis Ferchichi alias Bushido in the trial against Arafat Abou-Chaker and three of his brothers.
The rapper and the head of a Berlin clan were business partners.
Abou-Chaker is now in the dock and Bushido, as a co-plaintiff, is the most important witness in the trial of attempted serious blackmail, dangerous assault and other allegations.
In 2004 Arafat Abou-Chaker made sure that the Aggro Berlin label signed a termination agreement with Bushido.
The rapper had said on the previous day of the negotiation that there had been disagreements, which is why he wanted to part with Aggro Berlin.
Aggro Berlin describes parts of this statement as untrue and demands an omission from Bushido.
That day he has a pack of paper with him, "completely prophylactic".
It concerns "all contracts" between him and Aggro Berlin.
He hands the pile to the court.
Then he begins to tell how Arafat Abou-Chaker came into his life.
"Hamudi Wasserkopf" as an intermediary
Bushido says that after consulting a lawyer, he "saw no legal possibility" how he could get out of the contract with Aggro Berlin according to his own ideas.
Bushido decided to get help elsewhere.
He turned to "the guys from Schöneberg".
"King Ali" was a big name on the street back then.
He asked him to send one of the boys to Aggro Berlin.
He had given him a termination agreement that his lawyer had prepared.
Aggro Berlin should have signed them.
Weeks have passed, nothing has happened.
He then turned to "Hamudi Wasserkopf", "a special person" in Berlin-Schöneberg, as Bushido says, "very enthusiastic about hip-hop" - and a cousin of Arafat Abou-Chaker, which he did not know.
"Hamudi Wasserkopf" then introduced him to the clan chief, and they met in front of a disco.
"He didn't look very interested. He looked relatively gloomy, aloof," says Bushido.
"It was the first time in my life that I saw Arafat Abou-Chaker."
The second time was in a café in Kreuzberg when he described his problem with Aggro Berlin to Abou-Chaker.
A few days later they saw each other for the third time and drove to Aggro Berlin together.
They went to the studio alone.
Initially only "Specter", one of the three label founders, was present.
First slap in the face, then signature
As Bushido portrays it, Abou-Chaker only had to emphatically demand his signature, then "Specter" would have signed the cancellation agreement.
Then his business partner Halil Efe was called into the studio by phone.
When he replied, Abou-Chaker first slapped him and then grabbed his ear.
Finally, Efe also signed.
The third company founder, "Spaiche", recently appeared in the studio.
Accompanied by a friend who had been sent away.
Spaiche asked Bushido with a look at Abou-Chaker: "This is how it should work now? Is that how you want to do it now?"
But in the end he signed too.
"Yes, that's it then," says Bushido and looks at the presiding judge.
"So I was no longer contractually bound to Aggro Berlin."
"And how did it go on?" Asks the judge.
"For me personally, the world was fine at first," says Bushido.
If you believe his descriptions, this feeling did not last long.
Then he tells a story that he has never told publicly before.
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Defendant Arafat Abou-Chaker in court on August 17th
Photo:
Pool / Getty Images
Arafat Abou-Chaker wanted to meet him again.
He drove to Kreuzberg and sat in the car with the clan chief.
He first asked whether Bushido's lawyer had checked the contract in the meantime and whether everything was okay with it.
"It fits, everything is great," Bushido replied in court.
He tends to make dialogue appear verbatim.
Then Abou-Chaker wanted to know what he was getting for his commitment.
"Freaked out"
Bushido says he expected the question.
He told Arafat Abou-Chaker that Universal wanted to sign him.
It was about a so-called tape transfer contract and an advance payment of 50,000 euros.
To Abou-Chaker he said: "I am ready to give you 20,000 euros."
Abou-Chaker reacted completely unexpectedly.
He was "freaked out".
"I did not understand why the conversation totally escalated," says Bushido.
Abou-Chaker grumbled and scolded.
He cursed his cousin who introduced him to Bushido.
He shouted, "What an idiot I am that I fell for you."
At some point Arafat Abou-Chaker said: "If you are correct, you will give me a percentage."
He has demanded "from now on, to be involved in everything I ever earn, in all areas," says Bushido.
"It was absurd."
Bushido says: "To be honest, I didn't know him. Of course he did me a great favor. A lump sum of 20,000 or 25,000 euros would have been absolutely appropriate, but no participation."
Arafat Abou-Chaker continued to bet.
"Out of necessity, I asked him: 'What percentage do you imagine?'" But Bushido had to name the first number himself.
"As a precaution, I said 20 percent. Then the next bomb exploded."
Bushido says he was totally intimidated.
He saw how Abou-Chaker performed at Aggro Berlin and how he managed "all by himself" to force the three label founders to sign.
Bushido says Aggro Berlin's portrayal that they were in the studio with six people and a machete at the time is wrong.
"It's all bullshit."
He was only there with Abou-Chaker, "Arafat and I are all alone".
30 percent participation
In the car, Arafat Abou-Chaker said: "For once, I would be satisfied with 30 percent."
Bushido takes a deep breath.
"Then I said: 'Okay, then from now on you will get 30 percent of everything I will ever earn.'" He was forced to participate, the rapper says in court.
The judge asks.
He says that the newspapers tend to speak of a "close friendship from day one", "not of coercion at all".
Yes, says Bushido, "I never told this story to anyone."
Only last year he spoke about it for the first time in an interrogation.
It was not a friendship, even if it looked like that in retrospect.
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