Benal
Benal Interview – „We have become more happy with the idea of being happy.„
Interview mit Benal
Wir haben mit dem dänischen HipHop und Rap-Duo Benal aus Kopenhagen gesprochen. Hier bekommt ihr einmalig die Chance mal was von ihren Dänischen Texten zu verstehen.
Wir haben Benal schon zwei Mal live gesehen. 2014 war Benal unser erster Live-Act, den wir auf dem Spot Festival gesehen haben. Und er hat uns umgehauen. Dänische Texte, einfach stilvoller HipHop, geile Beats und ein astreiner Flow. Jetzt Anfang Mai durften wir sie dann nochmal sehen und es war erstaunlich welch großen Sprung Benal gemacht hat. Der Dome, in dem Benal gespielt hat, war voll und die Stimmung war einfach nur knackig gut. Da sind wir jetzt schon ziemlich stolz, dass wir mit Benjamin sprechen durften. Dabei wollten wir endlich das Geheimnis um ihre Dänischen Texte lüften. Ob uns das gelungen ist, erfahrt ihr jetzt.
Just introduce your project Benal in three danish words.
Benal: “Mormor bliver glad.”
In the last two years Benal was pushed quite very well. In 2014 you played for just a few people in Radar at Spot Festival. This year you played in the Dome. Could you please describe the development of Benal retrospective?
Benal: “We have always tried to be as calm and not-shouting as possible when it comes to hype and advertising. We feel that in a world where almost everybody tries to sell you something, and everybody shouts “come here, hear this, watch that” we are more attracted to the idea where you find us if you find us, and there is no putting stuff down your throat, unless you want us to, then we can find out a seance in the studio with some candles, but otherwise we feel like the power of news is great and we can only be new to you 1 time. 1 time only, then we become friends or enemies or whatever you want but the new-feeling only comes once and therefor we hope the first time will be something special and not a Facebook sponsored “look at me” explosion of puke.
But to answer your question our development the past year have been amazing, a giant rocket filled with an euphoric need for eye contact: awkward but sexy.”
In your opinion: what was it that got the ball rolling?
Benal: “We just put the ball at he highest possible spot and then waited for a breath of fresh air. We have become more happy with the idea of being happy. Without being jolly. Just crystal-clear happy, as when you see the love of your life for the second time and follow intuition over mind.”
Last year Benal existed of three members. What happend?
Benal: “Lukas our third member decided to leave us so he can focus on his solo music. We are still friends and he is as amazing now as he was before. Lukas for president (maybe only in Denmark, because i think you have to be a German citizen to be elected in Germany, but you get the warm feeling).”
Your songs are all in danish. You know that not every German can understand what you are texting right?
Benal: “We know, but for us to express ourselves so natural and direct as possible we do it in danish. We hope to get intimate with the listener and in order to do so we have to be intimate with ourselves and our intimate-catalyst starts with a simple “kig i mine øjne, vil du med til noget nyt?”.”
“…we have chlamydia.„
Don’t you think that your danish lyrics precludes Benal from the german speaking musicbusiness and market?
Benal: “It might do but the hope is that we find a way to get intimate with a german speaking audience in a way the both sides of the relation will be able to ignore the gaps. A long distance relationship with a solid core of deep-warm magic euphoria, almost like the Eurovision..”
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For us it does not really matter that we don’t understand a thing of your lyrics. For us this is a very interesting stylistic element. Or do you think we have understand the lyrics to “understand” your music?
Benal: “Af hjertet tak! Your understanding of the music is as good as it gets. If you feel you can fall into the Stimmung then you understand it very well. In these internet days we feel like we have a lot more in common with likeminded people in Germany than with our narrow-minded neighbors (sorry Ms. Jensen if you are reading this).”
“We just put the ball at he highest possible spot and then waited for a breath of fresh air.„
In which way do you think this gives Benal a very cryptic or darkly attribute?
Benal: “We try not to be too dark and mystical and intentional artsy because that is just a road of avant garde shit loving. As my father says: “you can spend an entire life in the company of words without ever finding the right one; like a fish wrapped in Hungarian newspapers; first of all its dead and second it doesn’t understand Hungarian”.”
Benal im Portfolio
For me this gives me the chance to concentrate on the other very important elements like the beats and the flow. How do you manage that to make the music of Benal accessible in an easy way (catchy beats for example)?
Benal: “Albert, the producer, have been making his own stuff for some time and have put out music in England with great results, so most of all he is a beat machine that will make you laugh without touching your finer parts (purposely). The flow is the flow is the flow is the flow, it’s just how it goes.” 🙂
For me as an “onlooker” your danish lyrics have some rimes and word orders which are catchy in their own way…
Benal: “Tusind tak min ven! I try to put it together so it sounds good and the balance between flow and meaning comes out dancing in both ends. We need good sounding stuff in these ‘let-me-just-put-this-knife-in-your-ear-days’ and we try to make your erogenous zones pump and moisten with the need for a little bit more.”
Do you think this is very important because maybe one day we can understand your lyrics and then we say “Oh no. Their lyrics aren’t that interesting anymore.”?
Benal: “It is very important, we hope that you will never understand it fully because then you will know that we are just simple people. We love you, and hope that you will still love us even if we gained 230 pounds and showed you our closed full of skeletons.”
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Maybe we will try it now. What is “Trancer” about?
Benal: “Trancer is about a girl I dated and how I felt she was thinking in the beginning moments of our relation and how that made me think about other stuff that might have made her think about checking her phone, but she didn’t and then the song ended.”
Please complete the sentence: Benal could play a gig in Germany although…
Benal: “…we have chlamydia. Just kidding, its just Albert the producer that is infected…
Just kidding we are very clean almost like the higher levels of Scientology.”
Please tell us your favorite quotation of one of your songs in danish and than translate it please.
Benal: “We love all of the text like a sick mother loves chocolate pudding but heres one:
“Det er ligsom om hun ikke kan dø
så når de taler om at dø er hun ikke nervøs
og når de taler om at leve er hun indforstået
men stadig bange for det dybe som en blind i båden”
Its almost like she cant die
so when they talk about death she is not nervous
when they talk about living she is inaugurated
but still afraid of the deep like a blind in a boat.”
