The U.S. president, Barack Obama, famously brought hip-hop into the American political mainstream during a televised primary debate in 2012 when he wiped the "dirt off his shoulder,'' a reference to a 2003 recording by Jay-Z.
It was a moment in which two worlds – hip-hop and the American political elite - merged for the first time.
The gesture during Mr. Obama’s election campaign is one of many in the U.S. president’s “bromance” with the American rapper.
As hard as it is to imagine the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, bopping her head along to Jay Z, hip-hop has firmly established itself in Germany.
The proliferation of German rap performed in the German language has firmly cemented itself in the German music mainstream, even if the number of rappers with reflective lyrics, politically charged content and a differentiated way of portraying their own lives is much smaller than that in the United States.
(...)
Original