Poeple keep asking me how a day at the Neo Magazin Royale studio looks like. Let me share some insights on our farewell show…
Eine deutsche Rapgeschichte Part II
For Dendemann’s farewell from Neo Magazin Royale, there was again a cracking program with an illustrious selection of guests including, amongst many, MoTrip, Die Orsons, Fettes Brot, Deichkind and of course the Rundfunk-Tanzorchestor Ehrenfeld.
The aim was to give Dendemann a worthy sendoff and to top “A German Rap History Part 1”. With this in mind, Dende came up with two incredible medleys: a Dende medley of his best hits and the History of German Rap Part 2. He chose the tracks, (re)wrote the lyrics and invited the guests. We – Die Freie Radikale – were given the tracks two weeks before the recording so we could prepare ourselves mentally; that is, listen to the work and record a guide track for the guests.
Albrecht Schrader and Lorenz Rhode wrote the wonderful orchestral arrangements. I had the honourable task as musical director of Die Freie Radikale of pulling everything together. What this meant for the band was bringing the medley to life: the original was made up of signifcantly more than 4 or 5 tracks or instruments. Our job was to pick out the most essential and important things, bring them to life and make small changes in the arrangement here and there in order to improve the fow. I was allowed to listen to the orchestral arrangements in advance and coordinate them a little.
The day of recording was then pretty exciting. We have our own rehearsal room in Studio König and there we made the last changes (“we need another verse here… ahh, a bit slower with this track”) and played the medleys through. We then met the orchestra in the studio. We first had to get everyone set up technically and then we went through and played everything with the orchestra. A very exciting task, bringing together rap, instrumental zeal and the orchestra.
And then the general rehearsal began, a real old-school German rap reunion. Very, very funny, until the program supervisors indicated that we’d run an hour over schedule, while the director and artists still wanted to improve a few things. It’s important to keep cool and ensure that at the end, all participants are reasonably happy, relaxed and can look forward to the recording with confdence.
And voila! – once again, the Bildundtonfabrik, Jan Böhmerman and Dendemann created an epochal production. Dendemann and our humble selves are out, we wish Neo Magazin Royale all the best for the future!
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