Namika: Multidimensional German Identity in Music
Namika was born in Frankfurt, Germany to parents of Moroccan heritage, and grew up speaking both German and Berbish, the linguistic origin of her performance name, which means “writer.” Her music, and her identity, has many layers. Although her songs are written in German, they are far from one dimensional, blending instruments and narratives from both cultures that she can call home.
This is a recurring theme throughout her work, made most clear in “Nador,” the title of her 2015 album and the first single of the release. Nador is the city on the Moroccan coast her grandparents emigrated from and where the music video for the track is shot. She takes the viewer through the dusty streets of the city as she muses on how different her life would be had she grown up there. The chorus repeats, “I feel at home; I feel lost.” Both were true. In an interview with Wildwechsel, she recounts memories from her childhood, when she spent summers with her grandparents in Nador. Growing up in two environments, she released at some point that she did not belong to either. She felt like the German to Moroccans and the Moroccan to Germans. Nador became “a synonym for self discovery,” a symbol of the struggle for an identity that would only be achieved with the embrace of her full heritage.
Her album, preceded by an EP and a string of singles, is similarly tough to nail down. Tracks range from the upbeat sweetness in a profession of love in “Lieblingsmensch” to the social critique in the rougher, fast paced rap on “Wenn sie kommen,” which features Ali As, a German hip hop artist of Pakistani origin. He, like Namika, experienced that “otherness,” growing up in Germany in an immigrant family while often spending vacations visiting family in Pakistan. As he described it, he lives at “ cultural intersections “ and releases music from the same place, tying in the history of his family’s repatriation, experiencing privilege and patriotism from the community he grew up in, and searching for his own identity as a rapper and a German-Pakistani.
He underscores the harsher tones in Namika’s hip hop focused track, a sound that can also be heard in “Immer noch Wir,” another collaboration with Ali As, and “Na-Mi-Ka,” while others err on the side of R&B, as in “Coole Katz,” “Herzrasen,” and, unsurprisingly, “90s Kids.” Her voice, even in more gritty tracks, never sounds harsh. Instead, her vocals are quick and clean, sitting above bass lines with a light electronic groove, more experimental than traditional hip hop. Namika raps and sings in her “mother tongue,” German, which she said in an interview, describes her intent more deeply than rapping in English could. She is a promoter of using the language to convey her personal and artistic experience and frequently works with other German-language musicians on projects, like the Beatgees, who produced the single “Kompliziert,” Motrip, who was featured on “Mein film,” and Ufo361, a rapper who featured her on “Traum” in his 2017 album.
It may seem natural for Namika and others to rap in German when it is the language they know best, but there is quite a pull from the international hip hop community to write tracks in English and import or adapt musical material that may speak more to global followers of the genre than the artists’ local community. In this respect, Namika is a minority in hip hop, even more so as a female performer. The years of self discovery and identity negotiation have paid off in the confidence heard in her songs and the formula that portrays a complete version of that identity. Her album, Nador, in its range of both sound and story, seems to communicate a whole picture, of dark and light, personal and social, criticism and celebration, a night out with friends and a pensive walk on the Moroccan coast.
Would Recommend: Nador (pensive), Wenn sie kommen (thoughtful dance), Lieblingsmensch (sweet), Hellwach (Girls’ night out)
Originally published at https://www.theintersection.co on August 6, 2017.
