The members of Blumentopf don't quite fit the textbook definition that one might conjure up when imagining the face of the hip-hop genre. For starters, the band's name – German for "flowerpot" – doesn't necessarily emit much street credibility. Neither do the lyrics, which err on the side of cleverly-fashioned social and personal commentary, as opposed to evoking any semblance of a troubled upbringing on the streets.
Regardless, over the years, the group has established a solid following that few can overlook or deny.
Blumentopf’s sixth full-length album – and its first with record label EMI – “WIR,” was released earlier this year. The group returned a few weeks ago from a more-than-month-long tour of promoting the album, during which they toured and performed non-stop, with only one full day and two afternoons off. But such is the life on the road of one of the biggest hip-hop bands in the German-speaking world. And after nearly two decades of being together, the members wouldn’t have it any other way.
“The tour was great,” said Sepalot, the group’s DJ, who is otherwise known by his birth name of Sebastian Weiss. “Touring is always great. To perform the music you’ve written in the studio live in front of an audience is always great.”
Blumentopf’s origins date back to the early-to-mid-90s, when the members were friends growing up in the suburbs of Munich. Back then, the group admittedly wasn’t too serious about being a band. Instead, they met casually, about once a week, in a room with turntables and microphones and set about to freestyle rapping, not anticipating or foreseeing any kind of future as career musicians.
“We started really naïve,” Weiss explained.
Each time they met, the members would give the group a new name for that week – one which was arbitrarily chosen. On the week that Blumentopf was the name, they happened to be asked to perform between two acts at a festival, which was, coincidently, their first live show.
“This was [also] the first time our name was on a flier,” Weiss said. “And from that day on…we had the name [Blumentopf].”
The meaningless nature of the band’s name has been a constant source of speculation for fans and the media who want it to be symbolic and meaningful.
“They have a lot of stories, but actually there is no story,” he said.
This lack of a story or significance behind the name is what inspired the band, for some time, to purposely concoct a new elaborate and explanatory story for each successive interview. But it’s precisely its immaterial nature that makes the band name perfect, because it can mean whatever it needs to, evolving and changing just as the band does.
“I think it fits very well,” Weiss said.
Having received positive attention after their first show, Blumentopf started to take things more seriously, and quickly began to write and record music, subsequently deciding to release the songs on a vinyl format. Even so, the members weren’t all that concerned with getting a deal. Instead, they were more focused on getting exposure for the music.
“We were really really independent,” Weiss shared. “We didn’t contact a record label. We contacted directly a vinyl factory.”
However, soon after, the band began attracting the attention of record labels anyway, until they finally signed with Four Music.
While the songwriting now is more structured than it was in the beginning, Weiss said that it’s still an unpredictable process, in that the members never begin with a complete idea of how a song should sound or feel. Instead, after he comes up with a general idea of the musical vibe of a song, one person will typically come up with a line or phrase, and the other emcees will riff off both the sound and the idea.
And the end result varies too. Some days that process works, but some days it doesn’t.
“Sometimes of course, you have days where it’s more destructive…and at the end of the day, nothing happens,” he said. “[But] this is a good thing, when you work together with five people, and nothing is fixed, and everybody has an idea. [In] the lucky moments it’s like everything comes together.”
Weiss said that the pros and cons of working with a non-flushed-out idea occur on the level of the whole group, as well as individually.
“I always have a kind of vision when I start producing something,” Weiss said. “I always have something in mind where I want to go…but it’s not always happened that I reach this goal. It’s important to have a vision but always be able to think all over again…because at the end of the day, it’s a creative work, so you have to be open for everything.”
How that translates to an on-stage performance is interesting, because Blumentopf incorporates a live band with drums, keyboards, bass and guitar into its concerts.
“The band plays and I’m cutting samples and sounds to the band,” Weiss explained. “We have this thing, DJing and live band, completely integrated together.”
Weiss said he uses the program Serato for DJing, although he initially started the old-school way, without being able to rely on much technology. He said the system is convenient without sacrificing much of the sound or possibilities of DJing.
“The handling is exactly the same like vinyl, but in fact you only need two pieces and not hundreds,” he said.
Overall, the tour for “WIR” is different than those that came before it, because the elements of the album and its live performance are a departure of sorts from the albums that came before it. In spite of the musicians performing onstage with Blumentopf, there weren't any used in the studio, excepting a guitarist for a few parts. Yet even so, the album surprisingly yielded a sound that is only complemented by the addition of live instruments.
“I really love to perform the whole last album, because when we were in the studio and produced [it], we didn’t recognize [how well it works] on stage,” Weiss said. “Without knowing it, we produced kind of a live album in the studio. It feels so natural.”
This conduciveness for translating what was done in the studio into a performance format is also what makes the material from “WIR” some of Weiss’ favorite to perform, although he said it’s difficult for him to claim ownership of the album without feeling like he’s dismissing the five which came before.
“To talk about your own songs is to talk about your own kids,” he said. “It’s always hard to say, ‘I love this kid the most and the other kids not so much’.”
Weiss’ DJ career also extends into a solo project, which released a new mixtape earlier this week. Additionally, all of the other members have solo or side projects of some degree, which range across the spectrum from hip-hop music (Weiss, Roger Manglus, Cajus Heinzmann) to indie rock (Florian Schuster) to intensive medical schooling programs (Bernhard Wunderlich).
But regardless of whether he’s making music for himself, collaborating with someone else, or working with the band, Weiss said that the fact he’s making it is the best part of what he does.
“I love making music because it’s the way to express myself, and it’s great to have that as a job,” he said. “I love DJing in a club…I love creating songs. This is a really outstanding feeling. I love being onstage and performing the songs with our band and having this one-to-one feedback from the audience.”
Although Blumentopf is a band that is only well known in countries where German is spoken, Weiss said that otherwise, the fan base pulls from all kinds of individuals, and not just classic fans of hip-hop. He attributed this to the fact that the members are all just regular people who happen to use hip-hop as one vehicle among many for self-expression.
“We’re not the classic hip-hop guys with XXL white tees and fresh Air Force Nikes. That’s not how we look like and that’s not our cup of tea,” Weiss said. “We are middle-class kids from the suburbs of a city. We have done a lot of bullshit in our time, of course, like everybody else did.”
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