From the curb to the skyline
| From the curb to the skyline | |||||
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| Bushido studio album | |||||
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Publication |
2003 |
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| Label (s) | aggro Berlin | ||||
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Format (s) |
CD, record, cassette |
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Title (number) |
19th |
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running time |
69:32 |
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Studio (s) |
Berlin |
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From the curb to the skyline is the first solo album by the Berlin gangsta rapper Bushido . It was released on July 14, 2003 on the independent label Aggro Berlin and is also the last full-fledged album that Bushido released on this label. From the curb to the skyline is considered to be one of the most influential albums in German-speaking gangsta rap. It reached number 88 in the German album charts and thus recorded the first chart success for both Bushido and his label Aggro Berlin. Accordingly, from the curb to the skyline is still considered to be groundbreaking for the later success of both sides and has been described as a classic of German rapeseed.
Since September 30, 2005, the album may no longer be sold to young people under the age of 18. As a justification, the Federal Inspectorate for Media Harmful to Young People , which is responsible for indexing , states that it contains misogynistic and discriminatory texts.
content
The album is assigned to the gangsta rap genre and is characterized by predominantly harsh lyrics, which, among other things , address gun violence and drug use ( one bullet is enough ), misogyny ( piece of dirt ) and life in the ghetto . With Berlin, there is also a hymn to Bushido's hometown, which also has homophobic text passages. Furthermore, the rapper praises himself in the song Bushido . The song Stupid White Man is directed against the war policies of the then US President George W. Bush .
Production and samples
All tracks were produced by Bushido according to the booklet information - with the exception of tracks 7, 8, 10 and 19 (produced by Bushido and Ilan), tracks 1 and 6 (produced by DJ Ilan ), and track 9 (produced by Sido ). No information is given regarding the numerous samples used.
In addition to the obvious dialogue samples from Jackie Chan's “They called him bone breaker” in “Electrofaust”, which also served as a sample source for the music, samples of Yōko Kanno's music were taken from the songs “Berlin” and “Pitch Bitch” series the vision of Escaflowne ( "Shadow of Doubt", "Aoi Hitomi", "Memory of Fanelia") used and the outro of Sahira contains a sample of Yoko Kanno, the rapper Booba already a few years earlier to "Temps Mort “Used. The tracks “Dreckstück” and “Asphalt”, on the other hand, contain samples of the songs “See, my beloved, here I have poison” and “Hades Pluton” by Sopor Aeternus . “Future” contains samples from the title “J'y suís jamais allé” by Yann Tiersen, which was taken from the soundtrack of the film “ The fabulous world of Amélie ”. The track "Vom Bordstein bis zum Skyline" contains parts of the piece "Consensual Words" by the group " Delerium ". The instrumental of the track “Mein Revier” comes from “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics group . The music of "Stupid White Man" was sampled from "Welcome to the Real World" by composer Don Davis from the Matrix soundtrack, while "GOD Part 3 Remix" by Mobb Deep was sampled for "Tempelhof Rock" . Furthermore, music passages and quotations from the film " American History X " are used on some tracks . The sampled voice in "Pussy" comes from a porn film with Kobe Tai .
Cover design
The cover shows the rapper crouching on a sidewalk. He leans toward the camera and puts his hands on his body. The arms are angled and not fully visible in the picture. The photo is in black and white. The logo of the Aggro Berlin label can be seen in the lower right corner. Like the title of the album and the name of the rapper written above it, it is in a bright neon green.
Guest Posts
Eleven tracks on the album contain guest contributions by other artists. Bushido's friend and label colleague Fler is involved with a feature on six songs ("Vaterland", "Mein Revier", "Asphalt", "Future", "Dreckstück", "Vom Kerbstein bis zum Skyline"). The singer Billy13 appears on the song "Bushido", while the singer Sahira can be heard in "Stupid White Man" and "Outro". The Berlin underground rapper Joek2 has a part on "Tempelhof Rock" and the two Berliners Sido and B-Tight appear on "Renn" as AidS .
Track list
| # | title | Guest musician | producer | length | annotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Electrofist | DJ Ilan | 2:12 | ||
| 2 | Bushido | Billy13 | Bushido | 4:49 | |
| 3 | At night | Bushido and DJ Ilan | 3:23 | 1. Single | |
| 4th | Berlin | Bushido | 3:13 | ||
| 5 | Fatherland | Fler | Bushido | 3:21 | |
| 6th | One bullet is enough | DJ Ilan | 4:48 | Indexing reason | |
| 7th | Pitch bitch | Bushido and DJ Ilan | 0:42 | ||
| 8th | My territory | Fler | Bushido and DJ Ilan | 4:44 | |
| 9 | Run | AIDS | Sido | 4:35 | |
| 10 | Mean like 10 | Bushido and DJ Ilan | 3:50 | 2nd single | |
| 11 | Streetwars | Bushido | 0:34 | ||
| 12 | Tempelhof Rock | Joek2 | Bushido | 4:07 | Indexing reason |
| 13 | asphalt | Fler | Bushido | 4:04 | |
| 14th | Stupid White Man | Sahira | Bushido | 4:42 | |
| 15th | future | Fler | Bushido | 3:44 | |
| 16 | Piece of dirt | Fler | Bushido | 5:23 | Indexing reason |
| 17th | Pussy | Bushido | 4:19 | Indexing reason | |
| 18th | From the curb to the skyline | Fler | Bushido | 3:52 | |
| 19th | Outro | Sahira | Bushido and DJ Ilan | 3:02 |
Individual songs
Electrofist
The track "Electrofaust" is the intro of the album. Quotes from the Jackie Chan film Drunken Master were integrated, which, together with the music and Bushido's rap part, convey an aggressive and gloomy mood.
Berlin
The song is a hymn to the city of Berlin. Among other things, because of the included sentences “Berlin is going to be tough again, because we beat every fagot” and “It's completely normal, men don't suck cocks”, Bushido is said to be homophobia to this day .
One bullet is enough
In “One Ball is Enough” Bushido tells a story from a first-person perspective. He tells how he went to a drug dealer, beat him up and robbed him. He doesn't say literally that he shoots him, but he does hint in the direction. The track was one of the reasons the album was indexed.
Pitch Bitch and Streetwars
"Pitch Bitch" is an instrumental ski . The voice to be heard has been "pitched", which makes it sound very high.
"Streetwars" is also a ski. However, only heavily orchestral music can be heard here.
Piece of dirt
The track "Dreckstück" is about Bushido having an argument with his girlfriend and then going to his friend (in the track Fler) for a few hours, with whom he then talks about the argument. Then Bushido decides to go back to his girlfriend with his boyfriend in order to apologize to her and to clarify the situation. But when they arrive, they catch their girlfriend red-handed because she is having an affair with another man. The two protagonists then beat up the husband and the girlfriend. The line "Just because you're a woman and you are fucked in the stomach doesn't mean I won't hit you until you're blue" was condemned as one of the toughest on the album in the indexing process.
reception
Chart success and singles
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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The album entered the German charts at number 88 in the 31st calendar week of 2003, left the top 100 the following week before returning to positions 91 and 96 before finally falling off the charts. According to the Universal Music - A&R Neffi Temur, more than 15,000 units were sold from Von Bordstein to the Skyline .
Two songs from the album were released as a single. The song "By Night" was released in May 2003 together with a split video from "Electrofaust" and "By Night". The second single was "Mean as 10". Both singles could not place in the German charts.
Cover of the single
"At Night"
Cover of the single
"Gemein wie 10"
Reviews
| Professional reviews | |
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| laut.de |
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| Allmusic |
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| HipHop-Jam.net |
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The album received mostly positive reviews.
- The e-zine laut.de gave from the curb to the skyline the maximum number of five points. The good production is particularly emphasized:
“ Aggroberlin rapper Bushido offers the whole package. The "New Kid On The Block" represents the Berlin district of Schöneberg To The Fullest on its debut. "It's good to be here because I live for the block," raps Bushido. And that on a very high musical level. Comparisons to Mobb Deep's "The Infamous" classics get loud - yes, they literally echo through the unsafe streets of "Tempelhof Rock". [...] But to reduce it to cool gangsta roll and merciless fronts alone would be unfair. Like Mobbster Prodigy, Bushido succeeds time and again in fabricating great city poetry that brings the bitter taste of the streets on the tongue. "
- The website HipHop-Jam.net gave the album 4.5 out of a possible 5 mics:
“ With“ Vom Bordstein bis zur Skyline ”, Bushido delivers an album that is revolutionizing gangsta rap in Germany. Anyone who doesn't like gangsta rap in German will not like this album either. What distinguishes this album are the absolutely great beats and the extremely hard way Bushido and its features rap. "
indexing
The album was proposed for indexing on April 6, 2005 by the youth welfare office of the Trier-Saarburg district via an online application . Bushido and his record company had intervened in the run-up to the meeting and argued with freedom of art . Statements were obtained from the art historian and cultural sociologist Roland Seim and from the production manager of Visions magazine , Peter Hesse. Two lawyers from Aggro Berlin followed the proceedings, but indexing could not be prevented.
The album was indexed because of the songs Eine Kugelreich , Tempelhof Rock , Dreckstück and Pussy . The twelve-member committee affirmed that young people were at risk and described the texts in the judgment as "coarse and inhuman". The texts contained discriminatory passages about homosexuals , the disabled and women. The examiners took particular offense at the passage in the text "Just because you are a woman and you are being fucked in the stomach / does not mean that I do not hit you until you are blue" from the song Dreckstück . A criminal relevance was denied, however, the album was included in List A of the indexed carrier media. The index came into effect on September 30, 2005.
Aftermath
Significance for the career of artist and label
From the curb to the skyline , along with Carlo Cokxxx Nutten, is one of the most influential albums in German-speaking gangsta rap. The Berlin label Aggro Berlin was able to record its first chart entry with the album at number 88 and thus heralded the commercial success of the label, which finally began with the release of Sido's single Mein Block in early 2004. Bushido entered the German album charts with his next album, Electro Ghetto , published under his own label ersguterjunge , and developed into one of the most successful and media-effective German musicians over the next few years.
The album is also the last complete that Bushido recorded for Aggro Berlin. He only worked with the label on the sampler Aggro Ansage Nr. 3 . The A&R Neffi Temur, responsible for the subsequent engagement of Bushido by the Universal Music Group , who later as A&R was also responsible for artists such as Sido, Haftbefehl and MoTrip as well as handling Universal's collaborations with Aggro Berlin and Selfmade Records and thus for the success of the Urban department of the label was jointly responsible, later stated that his impression of Vom Kerbstein bis zum Skyline had justified his decision to work professionally as A&R in the Urban department. The album was also decisive for his interest in Bushido and his first business contact with Aggro Berlin, which started a collaboration with Universal from 2007 onwards.
Bushido himself later paid tribute to Vom Bordstein bis zur Skyline by recording a quasi-successor to the album in 2006 with his fourth solo album Von der Skyline zum Bordstein zurück .
Appreciation by critics and other artists
From critics, Vom Bordstein bis zum Skyline is still the best solo album by Bushido and a milestone in German-speaking rap. The album enjoys corresponding cult status among the rapper's fans. The hip-hop magazine Juice counted from the curb to the skyline in the March / April 2013 edition as well as the 2002 together with Fler published Carlo Cokxxx hookers to the five German "Gangsta Rap Essentials".
The importance of the album was also emphasized in retrospect by other artists outside of Bushido’s environment. The rapper Casper described Vom Bordstein bis zur Skyline 2011 in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung as "one of the most important German rap records of all time". Felix Brummer , singer of the Kraftklub music group , named the album in a video interview as one of the five most formative German rap albums of all time.
Rumors about the origin of the name
Fler claims the title of the album for himself. In July 2018, he claimed via Instagram that 50% of the album "belongs to him" because he was represented on 6 tracks, the refrains came from his pen and the title of the album was his idea. Fler already claimed this in his Disstrack Du Opfer , which he published together with B-Tight in 2005.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Chart sources: DE ( Memento of the original from July 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. AT CH
- ↑ a b Rapper Casper: Hip-Hop between crumbling fronts sueddeutsche.de, October 1, 2013, accessed on October 20, 2013.
- ↑ {{Web archive | url = http: //www.politik.de/forum/internet/117248-sido.html | wayback = 20120116054340 | text = - | archiv-bot = 2018-12-05 11:10:37 InternetArchiveBot }} (Link not available)
- ↑ List of Samples ( Memento of December 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Musicline.de: Chart tracking for From the curb to the skyline ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Neffi Temur: "Since there have been majors, there have been indies", Backspin # 113, Fall 2013, pp. 23-29
- ↑ Rating: laut.de
- ↑ Rating: allmusic.com
- ↑ Rating: hiphop-jam.net
- ↑ a b Stefan Johannesberg :: From the curb to the skyline criticism: "German rap is now a ghetto". In: laut.de . Retrieved October 20, 2013 .
- ↑ HipHop-Jam.net: Review of the sound carrier
- ↑ Indexing decision No. 5312 of September 1, 2005
- ↑ Philipp Gässlein: From The Skyline To The Curb Back: Finally, the genius of the Berliner is coming to light again. In: laut.de . Retrieved August 20, 2013 .
- ↑ Bushido biography on laut.de
- ↑ Music giant Universal: A look behind the scenes with Neffi Temur (interview) - Toxik meets hiphop.de, December 4, 2014, accessed on January 23, 2016
- ↑ Bushido: "Many of my fans keep saying that" From the curb to the skyline "was the ultimate milestone." (PDF; 638 kB)
- ↑ Bushido: Der Weg des Kriegers , focus.de, September 27, 2008, accessed on October 20, 2013
- ↑ 5 Gangsta Rap Essentials from D, Juice , March / April 2013, pp. 30–31
- ↑ Casper: The new prince of hip-hop - "We are the Berghain generation" sueddeutsche.de, July 13, 2011, accessed on October 20, 2013
- ↑ Interview: Kraftklub about their connection to Rap 16bars.de, January 18, 2012, accessed on October 20, 2012 (video)
- ↑ "50% of Bushido's album is mine!" In: Raptastisch . July 15, 2018 ( raptastisch.net [accessed July 15, 2018]).
- ↑ Fler (Ft. B-Tight) - You victim. Accessed July 15, 2018 .
