Germany is a country of migrants, so people from other countries talk about their homeland
"I was born in Siberia and lived in Ukraine for a long time. We moved to Germany when I was seven years old. We came here because life in Ukraine was lousy, no work, nothing," says German rapper Capital Bra on YouTube. "My homeland is Ukraine, but Germany is also my homeland. I grew up here, learned the language, my friends, my family are here. And if I go on vacation for two or three weeks, to Spain for example, I want to come back to Germany."
Capital Bra's monologue, filmed against a snowy landscape with high-rise buildings and industrial structures in eastern Berlin, is one of about 200 videos (the number is constantly growing) posted on the YouTube channel of the "Germania" project. Their heroes are musicians, mostly rappers, YouTubers, i.e., those who publish their own videos on YouTube, models, film actors, and active social media users with their own audience — in other words, influencers.
As Deutsche Welle notes, two things unite the heroes of the "Germania" project: they all come from an immigrant background, i.e., as is commonly said in Germany, people with migration roots, and they are all popular among young people. They talk about their lives in Germany and their identity. "In Ukraine, everything would probably be more difficult than here. No one knows how it would be there. But here everything turned out great, and that makes me happy," concludes Capital Bra his laconic story.
His colleague on the project, CrispyRob, is much more eloquent. "If the curious attitude towards culinary diversity in Germany were more applied to each other, then the coexistence of people of different nationalities would be even more peaceful," says the smiling young man, walking through the streets of Aachen in western Germany. 25-year-old CrispyRob introduces himself as a chef YouTuber. "My parents are from Tajikistan, but in Soviet times it was all one country," he says. "What is typically Russian about me is that I eat typically Russian food every Sunday, simply because it's a tradition."
His mother loves to cook, his father is a chef by profession. So it's not surprising that CrispyRob himself became interested in cooking early on, and then started cooking in front of the camera. And he does it very successfully; his YouTube channel has over 2 million subscribers.
CrispyRob grew up in a district of Aachen predominantly populated by migrants — Russians and Turks. As a teenager, he realized that, in his words, the "ghetto lifestyle" was not for him. After changing schools, the young man found new friends, mostly Germans, and, as he put it, "had to integrate immediately." The young people in the new company made plans for the future and wanted to achieve something. "Such an environment changes a person; I also wanted to achieve something," says CrispyRob.
The YouTube channel "Germania" has 213,000 subscribers. It is a project of the German infotainment platform funk, created specifically for teenagers and young people. Funk is under the responsibility of the public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF.
"Germania paints a current portrait of Germany, exclusively through the perception of people with migration roots," says the project's website. "The focus is not on the refugee debate, but on the fact that Germany has long been a migration country with a multicultural society."
This portrait has many different strokes. Indeed, even in the story of such a successful young man as CrispyRob, there is a negative experience of a person from an immigrant background. There are also more dramatic stories, such as the story of rapper Sugar MMFK.
His parents immigrated to Germany from Angola; he himself was born in Germany. In the town of Linz am Rhein, where Sugar MMFK's family settled, they were welcomed warmly. But in elementary school, he had serious problems with a teacher who did not hesitate to dump the contents of a trash can on the boy's head in front of the whole class during a lesson.
"That's how she wanted to humiliate me," comments Sugar MMFK on the events of 20 years ago. "It left a mark on my school years." As a teenager, the future rapper often fought and was known to the police. "Violence was a way to get what I wanted, to assert myself," he says today. "That time made me who I am today. I reinterpret this experience in my music and lyrics."
Today, Sugar MMFK faces deportation from Germany. "For me, it would be a big step back if I were deported to a country where I have never been," says the rapper. "I was born here and committed crimes in this system. So the system also bears some responsibility. I am one hundred percent German. The problem is that I see myself that way, but others don't see me as German. They don't give me documents, they don't recognize me," concludes Sugar MMFK his story.
In 2018, the "Germania" project was awarded the prestigious television award Grimme-Preis in the "Children and Youth" category. The jury paid special attention to the demanding aesthetics of the video clips, noting the "wisely chosen filming locations," the quality of image and sound, as well as the musical accompaniment that completes the project's overall concept, kept in restrained tones.