This year's "HMT Stage Night Special" act. Followed by KID BE KID.

Yes, take another sip of your ego - tell me a bit more about yourself, I'll have a Solero.

Keboo in "Solero

"Crass feeling", "Rough vibe", "Mega beautiful" - that's what it says in the comments column of a major video streaming platform. Restrained praise sounds different. But why is this small but energetic group of YouTube listeners so excited? Because of her, because of the German-Ethiopian singer Keboo and her current single "Solero". Keboo, aka Solome Gebreyes, makes German-language soul that can get anyone and anything hypnotically nodding their head with a pinch of hip hop and jazz - and doesn't need three bars to do it.

Wait a minute, German-language soul? Didn't we first have to learn from rapper and producer Max Herre that there really is no such genre? But then again, Herre's professional epicenter, the great success with his colleagues from Freundeskreis, lies somewhere in the late 90s. That was a long time ago. 

Keboo, on the other hand, is so fresh. Since 2016, the Berlin native has been studying jazz/pop vocals at HMT Leipzig. In 2019, she released the EP "Surf" together with rapper Tightill and producer Dexter. Jazz meets rap meets trap - with a sound that drips hot, thick and uber cool from the speakers. At the end of this year, Keboo's first EP with German lyrics will finally be released. 

In her song "Solero," Keboo sings with a warm voice and casual attitude about failed communication, about talking to each other without listening to each other - "the eternal blah blah blah. And we are right in the middle of a scene that could take place in a club at half past two in the night or in the supermarket queue at half past two in the afternoon. There is always a person who thinks he has to enrich the world with monologues. "Take another sip of your ego [...] I'll have a Solero" is the song's title. By the way, what is meant here is not the popsicle, but the cocktail, which actually tastes the same and can obviously be quite helpful in keeping a cool head.

Once your head has cooled down, it's easier to nod along to Keboo's insistent beats in 4/4 time. A sound for all those who believe that German soul does exist. And for everyone else, too.