Die Fantastischen Vier

Die Fantastischen Vier at a broadcast center’s parking lot is exactly the kind of place they could get away with by 2009. Not because it was anything special as a venue—the whole thing was basically corporate sponsorship dressed up as a street festival. But they’d spent twenty years being smart and funny and stubbornly popular, the kind of band that made people who normally ignored hip-hop start paying attention. They’d won every argument about what German hip-hop could be.

I never made it to one of those Telekom shows, but the whole setup was funny if you thought about it too hard. Corporate money calling itself street culture, the contradiction built right into the name. But Die Fantastischen Vier had been above all that for years. They didn’t care about authenticity or street cred. They just made good music and let everyone else figure out what it meant.

By 2009 they were untouchable. That’s where you get to when you’re good enough that you stop apologizing for being popular.