The Echo music award will no longer exist. The Echo brand has been so badly damaged by the scandal surrounding the award for rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang that a completely new start is necessary, the German Music Industry Association announced in Berlin last week. The board of the German Association has therefore decided to end the award ( persoenlich.com reported ).
The Echo has been a "great award" for many years uk rcs data and at the same time a central industry event. However, the board does not want this music award to be perceived as a platform for anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia or trivialization of violence: "The board will take the necessary time to specify the changes."
Pianist Igor Levit, who, like other artists, returned his Echo in protest, tweeted: "I find the cowardice of an institution to abolish itself rather than face the real problems and causes of these problems deafening."
Levit gets to the point: there is no mourning here, there is no internal or public inquiry into how this scandal came about. It is a long road from the first discussions to the nomination. Everyone seems to have heard and seen nothing, otherwise it would not have come to this: at the Echo gala two weeks ago, Farid Bang and Kollegah were already awarded despite massive criticism of their nomination. The rappers have been sharply criticized for anti-Semitic lyrics, among other things. In their Echo-winning album "Jung, brutal, gutaussehend 3" there is one line: "Make another Holocaust, come on with the Molotov."