One of These Stones

Skull mask, Märkisches Viertel, mid-2000s Berlin—that’s how most people’s Sido story starts. He came out of a housing-project neighborhood wearing a cheap prop on his face, rapping about the specific texture of life when nobody expects much from you, and something in the bluntness of it hit an entire generation square in the chest. His influence on German hip-hop is not really up for debate anymore, even if his later career gave plenty of people opportunities to try.

Now he’s back with Einer dieser Steine—"One of These Stones"—a big emotional ballad alongside singer Mark Forster, and you could write the whole thing off as mainstream drift. I get that. But then it plays and he’s doing the thing he’s always been able to do, which is make pain and hope feel like they live in exactly the same breath. Whatever else you want to say about Sido, that particular talent hasn’t left him.