Culcha Candela
| Culcha Candela | |
|---|---|
 |
|
 Culcha Candela at Bochum Total 2016 |
|
| General information | |
| origin | Berlin , Germany |
| Genre (s) | Dancehall , reggae , hip-hop |
| founding | 2002 |
| Website | culchacandela.de |
| Founding members | |
| Mateo Jasik (Itchyban) ( Poland / Germany ) | |
singing |
Lafrotino ( Colombia ) |
singing |
Johnny Strange (Germany) |
| Current occupation | |
singing |
Mateo Jasik (Itchyban) ( Poland / Germany ) (since 2002) |
singing |
Johnny Strange (Germany) (since 2002) |
singing |
Don Cali ( Colombia ) (since 2002) |
| Chino con Estilo ( South Korea / Germany ) (since 2002) | |
| former members | |
singing |
Lafrotino ( Colombia ) (2002-2010) |
singing |
Larsito ( Colombia ) (2002-2014) |
singing |
Mr. Reedoo ( Germany ) (2002-2014) |
Culcha Candela is a 2002 founded band of reggae , dancehall and hip-hop from Berlin with an international cast that portrays herself multiethnic. Her lyrics range from serious, socially critical content (Una cosa…, Brave New World) to mood-enhancing songs (party bus). With around three million records sold, it is one of the most successful bands of its genre in Germany .
history
Culcha Candela set their foundation on July 7th, 2002 by the band members Johnny Strange , Itchyban and Lafrotino. Little by little Larsito , Mr. Reedoo, Don Cali and DJ Chino joined them. The different origins of the members are also reflected in the music, so the band members rap and sing in English , German , Spanish and patois . In the following years they gave numerous concerts, in 2004 the debut album Union Verdadera came out, which even entered the German charts.
The group was on tour with Saïan Supa crew , gentleman and the sons of Mannheim . In May 2005 a remix of Sientelo , the reggaeton hit by Puerto Rican Speedy and US singer Lumidee, was released . The second album Next Generation followed on September 12, 2005 , which was also the occasion for their first own tour. It is similar in style to its predecessor, so it was largely shaped by reggae.
On August 10, 2007, Hamma! the pre-single of the third album Culcha Candela released on August 31, 2007 . With the direct entry at number 1 on August 24, 2007, the band surprisingly achieved the greatest success of their career to date. In the following six weeks they were able to successfully defend first place in the single charts . Hamma! later reached platinum. This was followed by a Hamma! Tour in German-speaking countries. The second release from the album was Ey DJ on November 23, 2007.
On February 14th, 2008 the band represented their hometown Berlin with the song Chica at the Bundesvision Song Contest in the TUI Arena , in which they took seventh place.
Their fourth studio album Brave New World was released on August 28, 2009 , for which they were awarded platinum in Germany and gold in Switzerland in 2011 . The album stayed in the German charts for over a year. In terms of style, it was based on its predecessor, there are party songs, serious songs, but also two ballads on it. The first single was the song of the same name, Brave New World , which is about social, political and environmental developments. The second single Monsta was released on October 22nd, it went gold in Germany and even platinum in Switzerland . The third single was Eiskalt , which was released on March 19, 2010. In the summer of 2010 the fourth and final single Somma was released in the Kiez .
In November 2010, Culcha Candela were on tour in Central America for three weeks at the invitation of the Goethe Institute . That year Lafrotino left the band.
Her first best-of-album, Das Beste , was released on October 22nd, 2010, which includes songs from her four old albums, but also three new songs: Move It , Berlin City Girl and General . The first single, Move It , was released on October 8th and rose to number 7 in the German charts. The second release on January 14th, 2011 was Berlin City Girl as a Wir Edition Remix.
On May 27, they performed in the König-Pilsener-Arena in Oberhausen at the VIVA Comet 2011 awards ceremony and also received the award in the Best Band category. After the award ceremony, they announced a new album for the end of the year, the first song of which they presented on their tour: Hungry Eyes .
On January 6, 2012, the single Wildes Ding was released . The “jungle version” of the song was the theme song for the RTL jungle camp 2012. On March 8, 2012, they started their 15-concert Flätrate Tour with a concert in Dresden and three weeks later gave the final concert in their hometown of Berlin in front of around 7,000 fans.
At the end of 2012 they announced that they would take a break next year, there should be no concerts and no new music should be released. Instead, they wanted to work on solo projects. Larsito offered drum workshops and recorded an album called Something Stays , Johnny Strange was committed to the Afrika Rise organization , Don Cali produced music as part of the KAO project , Chino and Itchy performed as Itchino sound . In June 2014 Itchyban released his solo album Unperfekt under his real first name Mateo on the Warner label .
On May 15, 2014, Culcha Candela officially announced that Larsito and Mr. Reedoo have left the band and want to continue working solo. At the beginning of 2015, the four remaining band members also announced the change to Warner Music and the release of a new album together in summer 2015. On May 1, 2015 they released the song La Noche Entera , which premiered as a pre-single exclusively on their Facebook page. On June 5, their first official single Wayne (feat. Curlyman) was released from the new album Candelistan , which was released on August 28, 2015.
Style and content
At the beginning of their careers they mainly mixed the genres reggae, salsa , samba and dancehall. The music was almost exclusively recorded live in the studio with instruments either by themselves or by guest musicians. On their first two albums they still sing evenly in German , Spanish and English or patois , in the song Back to Our Roots Johnny Strange even sings on Luganda . They also placed even more emphasis on texts with socially and politically critical content, such as in Una Cosa , a song against cocaine consumption , or Mother Earth , which advocates more environmental awareness. Furthermore, they often played with their different cultures and diversity.
With the next albums the style changed: The album Culcha Candela contains more dancehall and pop songs and instead just a reggae track with Revolution . It is also noticeable that they only released one single with not only German lyrics. With Schöne Neue Welt they moved even further away from reggae and the language distribution was now different: They mostly sing in German and all extracts only contain German lyrics. Furthermore, only the songs Schöne Neue Welt and Stand auf have a socio-political content. The first single, for example, ironically criticizes today's consumer society and also addresses environmental problems . With Flätrate they distanced themselves almost completely from their original musical roots: Much more elements from electronic music and house are used, only a few passages were recorded with musical instruments and their voices were also reworked with auto-tune . In terms of content, they also focus more on entertainment and fun and less on criticism or social content.
Candelistan is still a party album, too, but autotune is rarely used here. There are also more socially critical songs such as B. Dream world . In addition, more dancehall influences can be heard again and with Coming Home and Lass ma eine build there are two reggae songs again. Furthermore, the language distribution was changed again. The German lyrics dominate again (every song contains at least one German part), but compared to Flätrate there are again more English and especially Spanish lyrics. Since there are now only four of them, the division has become clearer - Mateo sings in German, Johnny Strange in German, English or Patois and Don Cali in Spanish or German. The album Feel Success is a pure dancehall album with again predominantly German-language lyrics. There are no longer any English-language texts (apart from the refrains from Rodeo and Original Gyal ), Spanish- language texts (from Don Cali) still in Do your thing , comma clear , piste , pull up , Copacabana and Starting Over . The song also includes a remake of Ey DJ under the name Ey DJ II . The third single In my City includes a guest contribution by Mr. Reedoo who sings the chorus, the song itself includes the bridge of her debut single In da city .
Live performances
Tours as headliners
- Next Generation Tour (2005-2006)
- Hamma tour 2007.
- Culcha Candela Tour 2008.
- Brave New World Tour 2009.
- Nice New World Additional Tour (2010)
- Culcha Candela Tour 2011.
- Flätrate Tour 2012.
- Candelistan Tour 2015.
- Feel Success Tour 2017.
- Top Ten Tour 2021
With over 900 live shows in Germany , Italy , the Netherlands , Austria , Belgium , Switzerland , Poland , Portugal and France and some 250 concerts a year, Culcha Candela are an active live band. With the increasing success, the scope of their tours has decreased since 2009, but the individual concerts are all the larger. They can often be heard at festivals and open-air events. They have already played several times at Chiemsee Reggae Summer , Open Flair, Rock am Ring , Rock im Park , Donauinselfest , at the Hurricane and Southside Festival, as well as at various political and social events.
Often used elements
- Culcha Candela walk: All fans move left and right during the action and crouch down when they hear the words “everybody get down”. The walk took place for the first time on the Brave New World Tour in 2009 and has been at each of their concerts since then.
- Bamboo sticks: Since 2011, Culcha Candela have been playing a three-minute song with only the rhythms of bamboo sticks.
- Hamma-Move: For the Flätrate Tour 2012 they invented a simple dance to the refrain of Hamma! .
Before the start of the concert, the stage is always covered with a large flag on which the band's logo can be seen.
social commitment
Among other things, Culcha Candela has contributed to the DVD No Bock on Nazis , an initiative that is directed against the ideas of the NPD and neo-Nazism .
Johnny Strange , real name John Magiriba Lwanga, founded the organization Afrika Rise in April 2008 , the aim of which is to promote reconstruction work in Africa and the exchange between Germany and Africa. At cultural events such as the 50th Independence Day in Uganda , his father's homeland, he regularly appears with other band members.
In 2012 you were one of the prominent partners for the Action! Kidz association, which campaigns against child labor.
They also act as ambassadors for the All Kids are VIPs initiative launched by the Bertelsmann Foundation . Your goal is fair educational opportunities in the German education system. The integration competition is about encouraging pupils and teachers to stand up for more fairness and integration in everyday school life.
The band regularly comments on current political events on its own Facebook page and positions itself openly against racism and dictatorship.
The band is also regularly involved with Arche Berlin.
Controversy
After the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral in April 2019, the band polemicized on Facebook against the donations for the reconstruction of the church and against the Catholic Church, which they accused of not recognizing the sexual abuse of children and for the genocide of the indigenous people America's Responsible. In their criticism, the band erroneously assumed that the church building belonged to the Archbishop of Paris. Anyone who does not share their criticism of the donations for the reconstruction of the cathedral is a "right-wing extremist pisser". In April 2020, the band sparked a shit storm over tweets about the COVID-19 pandemic .
Discography
Studio albums
| year | Title music label |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
|||
| 2004 |
Union Verdadera Universal Music |
DE52 (1 week) DE |
- | - |
First published: September 20, 2004
|
| 2005 |
Next generation universal music |
DE20 (4 weeks) DE |
AT73 (1 week) AT |
- |
First published: September 12, 2005
|
| 2007 |
Culcha Candela Urban |
DE6th  (31 weeks)DE |
AT35 (6 weeks) AT |
CH23 (12 weeks) CH |
First published: August 31, 2007
Sales: + 200,000 |
| 2009 |
Brave new world urban |
DE8th  × 3
(60 weeks)DE |
AT26 (42 weeks) AT |
CH12 (46 weeks)CH |
First published: August 28, 2009
Sales: + 315,000 |
| 2011 |
Flätrate Urban |
DE15th (39 weeks)DE |
AT44 (12 weeks) AT |
CH25 (9 weeks) CH |
First published: November 25th, 2011
Sales: + 100,000 |
| 2015 | Candelistan Dolcerita |
DE11 (5 weeks) DE |
AT19 (3 weeks) AT |
CH15 (5 weeks) CH |
First published: August 28, 2015
|
| 2017 | Feel success at RCA Records |
DE17 (2 weeks) DE |
AT32 (1 week) AT |
CH80 (1 week) CH |
First published: August 25, 2017
|
Awards
-
Comet
- 2011: for best band
Nominations:
-
Comet
- 2008: for best band
- 2008: for Best Song (Hamma!)
- 2010: for best party song (Monsta)
- 2010: for Best Live Act
- 2011: for best party song (Berlin City Girl)
-
echo
- 2008: for national artists / group Hip-Hop / R & B
-
MTV EMA
- 2011: for Best German Act
-
1 live crown
- 2011: for best band
See also
Web links
- Official website
- Culcha Candela at Allmusic (English)
- Culcha Candela on MusicBrainz (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interview from October 13, 2005 ( Memento from April 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b c gold / platinum database Germany (search: Culcha Candela)
- ↑ "FLÄTRATE" - the new album now in stores and as a download. culchacandela.de
- ↑ Comet 2011: The jubilant winners . ( Memento of May 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) viva.tv-News, May 27, 2011; Retrieved May 28, 2011.
- ^ Renzo Wellinger: Culcha Candela new at Warner Music . ( Memento of January 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Musikmarkt, January 22, 2015.
- ↑ Culcha Candela at laut.de
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Homepage of Afrika Rise
- ↑ actionkidz.de
- ↑ allekidssindvips.de
- ↑ Culcha Candela. In: www.facebook.com. Retrieved April 12, 2016 .
- ↑ kinderprojekt-arche.eu
- ↑ https://es-la.facebook.com/CulchaCandela/posts/das-mit-notre-dame-ist-echt-schadeein-weltkulturberbe-muss-man-wieder-aufbauen-s/10157269414168537/
- ↑ https://es-la.facebook.com/CulchaCandela/posts/das-mit-notre-dame-ist-echt-schadeein-weltkulturberbe-muss-man-wieder-aufbauen-s/10157269414168537/
- ↑ https://es-la.facebook.com/CulchaCandela/posts/das-mit-notre-dame-ist-echt-schadeein-weltkulturberbe-muss-man-wieder-aufbauen-s/10157269414168537/
- ↑ https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article207374387/Culcha-Candela-kassiert-Shitstorm-wegen-Corona-Tweets.html