More Hips Than Human

She used to be the good cop on Deutschland sucht den Superstar—Germany’s version of Idol—the one at the judges’ table who defended the terrible auditioners with something that looked like genuine warmth. Shirin David. Calm, charming, the reassuring presence between the cruelty of the format and the people it chews up. You’d watch her and think: nice person, good instincts, long pleasant television career ahead. Then something happened. Whether it was a conversation with a manager, a personal reinvention, or just the logical endpoint of every thirst trap she’d ever posted, the result is the same: Shirin David is now, functionally, more hip than human.

Her new song Gib ihm has her scrubbing the studio floor with an ass that makes Nicki Minaj look understated, while she delivers lines like Attitude ist Nicki, Kronleuchter, Séparée / steh’ auf Schickimicki, Donatella an mei’m Hals, doch die Schuhe Jimmy and, later, Ich wollt’ in Unterwäsche kommen, fick deinen Dresscode. The production is clean trap with a Helene Fischer sugar-rush somewhere in its DNA, the aesthetic is every bottle-service fantasy ever filmed, and her delivery has the studied aggression of someone who did her homework thoroughly. There’s a version of this that’s a feminist statement. There’s another version that’s an empty room dressed in very expensive underwear. I watched the video twice and I’m still not sure which one I’m dealing with—though I’ll admit the first watch wasn’t primarily focused on the thesis.

What Shirin David has assembled—part German pop maximalism, part American trap cosplay, part gleeful provocation—is something genuinely strange: music that’s too knowing to be naive, too explicit to be ironic, too well-produced to dismiss. The comments will call her a Schlampe, which is exactly what she anticipated when she made this. She’s not wrong that a woman commanding a room in ten centimeters of fabric will drive certain people insane. Whether that’s the point or just a side effect, she’s not saying. Shirin David, Bitch, welche Ho will Stress? At this point? Not me.