Imagine you've been at the top of the German-speaking music world for a decade now. You've shaped a style, you've made your mark on both the rap scene and the pop landscape and played the country's biggest stages. Your trophy cabinet is bursting at the seams, every shot is seen as a hit, every new album seems to further accentuate your legendary status. Market researchers, label representatives and managers advise you to just keep doing what you're doing - no experiments that could shake the royal chair. And then you go into the studio, deliberately ignore the time-honored formula for success, risk everything without any necessity and produce ... a crossover album full of screaming vocals and wailing guitars.

Alligatoah has done just that! His new record "off" confronts the zeitgeist with deafening edgyness, resembling an LP-turned-wrecking ball on the pop Olympus.