Fritz Kalkbrenner (DE)

Growing up in the shadow of real socialist prefab buildings in the Lichtenberg district of Berlin, Fritz Kalkbrenner was a couple of years shy of being able to participate directly in the anarchic techno mayhem that followed right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when new possibilities and freedoms opened up in East Berlin within a short period of time. At the beginning of the 1990s, his older brother Paul and his best friend Sascha Funke went crazy for techno beats, while hip hop artists such as Eric B. & Rakim, KRS One and Wu-Tang Clan were Fritz’s heroes who could do no wrong. He studied their flow, memorized hundreds of lyrics, and learned how to tell stories – all basic research that would later benefit him. At the end of the 1990s (in 1997, to be exact) he, too, was blown away by techno and turned into a devotee of the clubbing scene as did many others of his generation. Legendary clubs in Berlin such as WMF, Tresor, and Suicide Circus became his haunts for doing a new kind of research. Partying feverishly, Fritz decided to start making music himself. One thing he knew for sure – his voice would be featured on the tracks.