Thomas D

One of the co-founders of the pioneering German rap outfit Die Fantastischen Vier, Thomas D has also maintained an intermittent solo career. Born Thomas Dürr on December 30, 1968, in Ditzingen, Baden-Württemberg, just outside Stuttgart, he helped launch the group in the late ’80s. Among the earliest German rap acts to cross over into the pop mainstream, Die Fantastischen Vier issued their debut album in 1991 and achieved widespread recognition the following year with the hit “Die Da?!,” which topped charts in Germany as well as Austria and Switzerland. In the years after that breakthrough, the group remained among the most commercially dominant mainstream acts in Germany for the rest of the decade. Their success crested with the 1999 release 4:99, a number-one blockbuster across German-speaking territories, and its chart-topping single “MfG.”

Thomas D launched his solo work with the 1997 album Solo on the Four Music imprint; the record entered the Top 20 and yielded the singles “Rückenwind” and “Solo.” He scored another success in 1998 via the duet “Wish (Komm Zu Mir)” with Franka Potente, featured on the Lola Rennt soundtrack. The standalone single “Liebesbrief” followed in 2000 and reached the Top Ten. His second solo album, Lektionen in Demut, arrived in 2001, climbed into the Top Five in both Germany and Austria, and generated the tracks “Uns Trennt das Leben” and “Gebet an den Planet.” After two more major albums with Die Fantastischen Vier, he returned with his third solo effort, Kennzeichen D, in 2008; it also entered the Top Ten and produced the singles “Get on Board” and “Vergiftet im Schlaf.”