While Barbara likes to prepare the coffee for tomorrow today, Jan Delay pushes up the controls and gets to work. Is it getting dark?
Barbara: Jan, that really wouldn't have been necessary, I'm really delighted. Thank you. Really: thank you very much!
Jan: You are welcome. For what? And what delighted?
Well, about the fact that the two of us are here today to talk about the night – and then you write a song on the subject.
Well, extra … I'll just leave it like that. But it's true: on my new album there is a track called "Eule".
A night owl.
Exactly. I just wanted an ode to the night write, so this bird occurred to me as the perfect vehicle for it.
Are you such an owl too? Or more of a lark?
Lark?
They say: you are either an owl or a lark. So nocturnal or rather full during the day.
Then the thing is clear: definitely owl.
When does the night actually start for you? With the sunset?
No I live in Hamburg, where it's dark at four in the afternoon in winter, so that would be a bit early. I once wrote in another song: "We are not the kind of people who brush our teeth and go to sleep after the topics of the day." Maybe this show actually marks the beginning of the night for me. How about you?
I brush my teeth even before the "topics of the day" …
To sleep after?
No, I want to prevent myself from eating anything afterwards. But it doesn't work. Has the Is there a special magic night for you in general?
Yes, in any case. On many levels. For example, there are cities that lack any charm during the day. But when the lights come on … That's when they reveal their secrets, and I find that exciting. Not you?
Hm. For me the charm of the night is completely different.
Namely?
Somehow I don't have the feeling that I have to discover secrets at night. I'm much more interested in the end of the night. I have a total weakness for dawn.
And how does it express itself?
I would like to come home with shoes in hand again in summer when the sun is just looking over the horizon. I haven't had that for a long time, and I'm just realizing: I actually have a little longing for it.
I can understand, it's also very nice.
Or what I also love: to sit on my terrace at five in the morning with a mug of coffee and watch the day unfold. I prepare this meticulously.
How come?
Before going to bed, I fill my French press with coffee and also the kettle. And then at dawn you can quickly go out into the semi-dark garden with your hot drink.
On the terrace.
Yes. Or I pace my latifundia.
Your what?
My … lands. So my garden. It can no longer be pitch black. The longer I think about it: I'm really not a person for the night. I am for the light.
Nothing against the light, really not. But I like the dark.
Why?
Because I can hide in it. Don't have to prove anything to anyone. I can get absorbed in it and do what I want. So: even more than I already do. I believe what unites us, dark or light: You are just as lonely and lonely on your twilight mornings as I am often, and we can both enjoy it.
That was really important to me in the first few months of Corona. Everyone was always there, the children never left the house. Then when I was awake before everyone else, I felt like I could hear the world breathe.
Difficult with me. Somehow there is always music on my nights. No matter what I do, I always have a beat on my ears or in my head.
Is that what you leave the house for?
Not necessarily. It's enough that everyone else is asleep. I used to have a certain rhythm that determined the nights. It still exists when I'm on tour or working on a record. But that's not child-friendly, and I have a daughter of school age …
But I understand: Jan-Delay-Songs are mainly created when it's dark.
Yes. When I'm in the studio, it's mostly night. When I play live, it drags on into the night. And when I hang up … well, then anyway.
Are you better at night
Better not. But somehow freer. Which sounds stupid now, after all, I'm not a prisoner of my life even in sunlight. But at night I don't need to get involved with anyone other than myself. Nobody wants to have e-mails answered, no milk has to be bought, no phone rings …
That's the worst of all: people who call after 9 p.m.! My limit is at six o'clock in the evening on this question, after which there will be no more telephone conversation.
Professional?
Not even privately. Not at the moment! Weird, is not it? I think we're not so dissimilar in this respect: I like to have the evenings to myself. If I had the choice of having an evening party in the morning – I would always be for the morning variant.
Because you are too tired in the evening?
No Because there is always a certain pressure on nights, there are great expectations in the air. If you're partying at night, it has to be special somehow. That stresses me, to be honest.
There's something to it, I've thrown parties that I definitely didn't want to shit. But these are not the nights that are important to me. They always have to do with work.
Always?
Somehow. After graduating from high school, I did community service, and after that I was entitled to good unemployment benefits for a year. At that time we got used to this nightly artist lifestyle and made an incredible amount of music, that's why we became so good and Hamburg hip-hop is so important.
You were in your early 20s. Did you know then that it would always go on like this?
I actually studied economics for three days.
Three days? And then?
First of all, I realized that it was just math, so nothing for me. And then "Bambule" came out.
The second album by your band at the time, Absolute Beginner.
Exactly, that was our name in 1998. It went so well that all questions about a different kind of life were quickly answered.
And that has its price.
Which?
I often have to go to the airport around five in the morning and then I like to talk to taxi drivers. They often say: You are my last trip. And then it turns out that he has been driving a taxi at night for 27 years, has no friends, hardly takes part in social life … And why?
N / A?
Because, he says, there's so little traffic at night.
But that's how he chose it. Made a decision, and who knows: maybe he doesn't value everything that is important to you and me too. There are such owls, the night is made for them. And: he's right about traffic.
I'll be there. I can still remember when I had a new car and only drove half the night through Berlin. Siegessäule, Unter den Linden, Alex … Nothing going on and the best music in your ear. Driving at night with music is awesome. Do you do this too?
For about two months.
How so?
I didn't have a driver's license before.
You're 44. Why did you do it now?
Because my daughter, who was six years old, thought I needed one. And since my wife doesn't drive either … I have to admit: If I had known how awesome driving is, I would have started much earlier.
While you mention your daughter: Some people forget how to sleep when they become parents.
It was temporarily like that, but the worst phase of giving the bottle three times at night and that's it is over quickly. But mean … let's say: she has already changed the general rhythm.
As the?
I still remember the feeling I had on our first New Year's Eve together. I liked to go to bed early and was out on the street with her in the pram at eight on New Year's morning when the last contaminated with thick skulls staggered home. I had to grin all the time.
That corresponds a lot with me. I really love partying, but I also think it's nice to go to my room at 10:30 pm during the most exuberant party and listen to the noise from below from afar.
Like as a child, when the adults partied.
Right. Something like that.
I also remember exactly how the night felt to me as a child.
Were you scared?
Not at all. That was the biggest thing for me because the night was a kind of forbidden zone. It was all very exciting. And I loved being able to stay up as long as I wanted on Christmas or my birthday.
Children can also tell you to the minute how long they were allowed to stay up four years ago on New Year's Eve. For them this is something so special that they will live on it forever. I, on the other hand, feel like I've had to go to bed at eight all my life.
That is hard.
And how. And because of the forbidden zone: it definitely started at 9 p.m. My room was two stories above the living room, but with the help of clever reflections from the stairwell I could somehow see the "Denver Clan" that ran downstairs. But I only know Krystle Carrington the other way around.
But you see: what fascinated you back then took place in your night, even if it started at eight. That makes the night so interesting, so are the people.
Do you mean
Well, maybe I just think that the free people are out there because that's how I feel at night. Because then my own creativity is greatest. I am sure there are many like me. Who write their books at night, paint their pictures, find their own voice.
Then I am slowly but surely asking myself: am I possibly staying below my possibilities, am I possibly not exhausting my creative potential if I leave every party too early and lie in bed immediately after the "topics of the day"? So I should, and you are encouraging me to do that, really more often at night go through?
It is like always and everywhere in life: there is no point in wanting to be someone you are not.
But I would really like to try again with the night.
Then don't let me stop you. I also try every five years to see whether I like coffee by now.
And?
Doesn't taste good.
JAN PHILIPP EISSFELDT, born in 1976 in Hamburg, became a hip-hop icon after high school and community service. As a member of the Beginner, whose 1998 album "Bambule" is one of the most important German hip-hop records. In the band he called himself Eißfeldt or Eizi Eiz, he has been solo as Jan Delay since 2001 and his importance for German rap is not uncontroversial, because he is constantly expanding his boundaries in the direction of soul, funk, rock and pop. His fifth album will be released next spring: "Earth, Wind & Fiegen". Delay lives with his wife and daughter in Hamburg.
STEPHAN BARTELS, like Delay at home in Hamburg-Ottensen, accompanied this conversation and sent the text version to the editing editor on a Thursday at 1:49 a.m.