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The reunification of Germany after 40 years of separation brought with it reflections regarding German history, self-image and self-awareness, and the new role Germany was going to play in Europe and the world (cf. Schildt and Siegfried 2009, pp. 471ff.). Additionally, this process of self-discovery implied broader considerations of social and cultural developments in modern societies, the worldwide triumph of Western individualism and consumerism as well as effects of globalisation. From the 1990s, popular music and youth culture in Germany also underwent various changes, which stand at least in an indirect relation to those processes and reflections and are discussed by pop journalists and social researchers. German pop critics coined the term 'mainstream of minorities' (Holert and Terkessidis 1996) in face of the alleged end of opposition and rebellion from youth subcultures against mainstream consumer culture. Cultural sociologists Ronald Hitzler et al. developed the concept of 'youth scenes' as post-traditional, rather loose networks of youth communitarisation (Hitzler et al. 2001; Hitzler and Niederbacher 2010). In their studies, they observed a broad diversification of contemporary youth scenes in Germany that formed around various thematic focusses, e.g. several genres of popular music, computer games, sports or live action role-playing games. In regard to popular music, the German techno scene captured the spirit of the 1990s with slogans of a 'raving society' dancing through the capital Berlin in hedonistic 'love parades'. Moreover, there have been more and more rock musicians who sing lyrics in German and there has been a growth of German rap music culminating in the hype of German gangsta rap in the early 2000s.
However, the 1990s saw the emergence of a German reggae and dancehall scene too, tying into popular music from the distant island of Jamaica. Although in the 1970s some Germans from an alternative milieu already loved to listen to Jamaican roots reggae, particularly Bob Marley, there had been almost no German reggae bands and no vital reggae and dancehall scene up to the late 1980s. It was not before the early 1990s that an agile underground sound system and club scene began to grow in Cologne and Hamburg and later in Berlin, Stuttgart, Leipzig and other cities. Then, in the course of the 2000s, German artists like Gentleman (born...