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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Overproduced, Underperformed, Uninspired, Uninspiring, May 30, 2001
German rap seems to fall into two main camps - just like its US forebear. There are those performers like Die Fantastischen Vier and Fettes Brot who are amazing lyrically and don't mind being thought of as a bit insane, then there are those like Sabrina Setlur who have talent but just don't use it.Sabrina's main problem is the fact that she is signed to the 3P label. The producer/head honcho of this label is a fellow called Moses Pelham - essentially the Puff Daddy of Germany. Pelham's recipe for success in music seems to be to turn the bass up VERY HIGH (3P's slogan translates as "more bass" - if there were any more my speakers would explode) and pepper the albums wih guest stars. This is the main problem with "S-Klasse". I heard "Du Liebst Mich Nicht" while in Germany in 1997 and was pleasantly surprsed by it. Unfortunately the reast of the album is in the same vein and it gets less and less pleasantly surprising as it wears on. Sabrina's rapping is quite pedestrian and rather talentless - although she does demonstrate that she could rap well if she really tried hard. In fact, whenever the track really begins to get bogged down she actually begins to shout, which is truly a sign of terrible lack of talent. The production here lives up to its name - more bass (and more and more and more and more). In fact, poor Sabrina is sometimes inaudible as Herr Pelham delivers another crashing salvo of bass, bass und mehr bass. The effect of this is almost the same as the West Coast belief that P-Funk beats were the way to go in the early-mid 90s - each track becomes almost indistinguishable from the next as the music sounds the same and the lyrics don't sound at all. The guest "stars" are truly shocking. This actually goes for all 3P acts. Moses decides that he has to make an appearance (at least he raps in German), as do the other two "headline acts" at 3P at the time - Thomas Hoffmann and Illmat!c. Hoffmann is thankfully rarely heard but if the listener hears him there will be do doubt who he is - another talentless one who's perfectly suited to production. Illmat!c is worse if that is possible. He tries to come out with a sound similar to that of just about anyone on the East Coast (even to the point of rapping in English). The net result of this is that he is the worst of all. The most interesting feature of this album is that it features 2 versions of the track "Freisein". The first appears to be the original - Sabrina actually singing behind a thin voiced man whose name I can't remember. The second has a much more convincing vocal contributed by Xavier Naidoo. A third version of this song appears on Xavier's album "Nicht Von Dieser Welt" and is also worth checkin out. Unfortunately, unless one is equippend with a CD burner, the only way to get the first 2 versions is through buying this. In short, not really a good album although Sabrina does show brief flashes of talent. Let's just say that for now she's more suited to hanging off Boris Becker's arm than performing music.
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by Sabrina Setlur 
