Max Herre

Max Herre’s childhood unfolded amid a household that placed strong emphasis on music, yet his introduction to hip-hop arrived only once he reached school, where the genre immediately captivated him. At first he absorbed nothing but American rap acts, until Advanced Chemistry’s example persuaded him that rapping in German was equally viable. In 1996 he teamed with Don Philippe and DJ Friction to establish Freundeskreis, whose debut album Quadratur des Kreises appeared in 1997 and was followed by Esperanto two years later. Once the band entered a hiatus, Herre turned to production, beginning with the solo debut Mamani by his wife Joy Denalane, whom he had first met while casting vocalists for the Esperanto track “Mit Dir.” His own self-titled debut, Max Herre, surfaced in 2004 and blended funk, hip-hop, and rock; shortly afterward he and Denalane launched the label Nesola Records, which issued her second album, Born & Raised, in 2006—again under his production—while he prepared to rejoin Freundeskreis for their ten-year anniversary shows.