Schwesta Ewa

Schwesta Ewa
Also known as Ewa Müller
Born (1984-07-16) 16 July 1984
Koszalin, Poland
Origin Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany
Genres German hip hop
Occupation(s)
  • Rapper
  • Prostitute
  • Bar owner
Years active 2012–present
Labels Alles oder Nix
Associated acts Xatar

Schwesta Ewa is the stage name of Ewa Müller (born 16 July 1984 in Koszalin, Poland), a rapper in the Frankfurt music scene. Ewa's family were stranded in Germany while en-route to the United States when she was a child.[1] She currently lives in Frankfurt, where she originally moved in order to work as a prostitute.[1] While working, she met the rapper Xatar, who signed her to his record label, and her first album, Kurwa, reached number 11 on the German album chart.[2] On 16 November 2016 she was arrested and charged with the sex trafficking and forced prostitution of five of her fans, some of whom were underage.[3][4]

Early life

A city street at night, with many colourfully lit buildings. On the left is a large, red tower.
Frankfurt red-light district. Ewa worked at Rotes Haus, seen on the left of this image.[2]

Ewa Müller was born 16 July 1984 in Koszalin, Poland to a Polish Jewish family.[5] Her father was arrested and imprisoned on the charge of murder while Ewa's mother was pregnant, and so Ewa spent the first three years of her life in hiding – her mother feared that the family of the victim would attack her in revenge.[1]

When Ewa was three years old, her mother left Poland and headed for West Berlin, with the aim of seeking asylum in the United States. Her mother was approved for a Green Card but was then convicted of theft.[1] The Green Card was withdrawn, leaving the family stranded in Germany.[1] Ewa grew up in a refugee home, and later a women's shelter, in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, at the time in West Germany.[1][2] Her mother married a German man, and Ewa took her stepfather's surname, Müller.[1] Ewa has two brothers born in Germany, who know that she worked as a prostitute.[5] Ewa's mother does not know about her career, and she is no longer in contact with her birth father.[5]

At the age of sixteen, Müller began working at as a bartender at a bar in Kiel's red light district, while studying at a Realschule (the middle rank of high school in the German school system) to become an occupational therapist, but failed the Realschulabschluss exam, which Ewa subsequently attributed to smoking cannabis.[1]

Ewa began sex work at the brothel in the back of the bar. She then moved to Bonn, and then on to Frankfurt's Bahnhofsviertel red light district. Her alias there was "Anja", for which she adopted a false Polish accent.[6] There, she was able to earn €20–30 thousand a month as a prostitute, but also became addicted to crack cocaine.[1] Suffering under its effects, her looks deteriorated and her earnings began to decrease, until she was forced to give up cold turkey.[6]

Music career

A bearded man wearing sunglasses, a chain, and a t-shirt reading 'CHABOS', rapping on-stage.
Xatar, Ewa's mentor and label boss.

Her breakthrough came at a party in Bonn, where she met the rapper and record label boss Xatar. Xatar was impressed by her voice and became her friend. He later signed her and became her mentor, sending her to London to practice her rapping.[1]

In December 2009, Xatar and seven accomplices robbed €1.7 million of gold from a transporter lorry. Xatar fled to Iraq, where he was caught and arrested in February 2010.[7][8] Xatar's flight and subsequent arrest threw a spanner in the works of Ewa's career – she found herself "twiddling her thumbs", unable to share her tracks with him. However, she also decided that she would not go back to prostitution – her promotion as a rapper meant that she was now famous, and she was worried about returning to drugs.[1] She has described rap as a form of music therapy, helping her work through her past.[2]

With Xatar running his record label from prison, Schwesta Ewa eventually managed to appear on the song "Beifall" from Xatar's album 415 and on "Frauen" on Hinterhofjargon by Celo & Abdi. Her first mixtape, Realität ("Reality") was released on 5 October 2012.[9] No tracks from Realität charted, but her first music video, "Schwätza" ("Small Talker") received over six million views on YouTube.[2] After the release of the "Schwätza" video in 2011, Ewa gave up prostitution to become a full-time artist.[10]

Her debut album, Kurwa (from the Polish kurwa, both a slang term for "whore" and a general-purpose expletive;[2] formerly Dr. Entjungferung ("Dr. Deflowering", with "Dr" also standing for "Deutschrap")[1]) was released in January 2015 and reached number 11 in the German album charts.[11]

Lyrical content

Many of Schwesta Ewa's songs cover scenes from her life as a prostitute, and she describes herself as a storytelling rapper. Topics include being attacked by johns, and being forced to watch the rape of a friend.[2]

Ewa has described herself as uncomfortable on stage and sometimes suffers stage fright. She therefore prefers to rap straight through, without banter or comic routines. However, she is accompanied on tour by strip dancers who perform as she sings.[1]

Bar and arrest

Alongside her rap career, Schwesta Ewa opened a bar in Central Frankfurt, Stoltze. The bar was raided by police, prompting an angry response from Ewa who wrote on Facebook "This is a bar, not a brothel! [...] I will open a legal brothel in two months. It will pay taxes etc. Don't worry!"[2]

At 8:30 AM on 16 November 2016, Ewa was arrested by a SEK unit (the German equivalent of SWAT) in Oeventrop, a district of Arnsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia where she was recording her new album.[12] She was detained at JVA Frankfurt-Preungesheim on charges of human trafficking for sexual exploitation, pimping, bodily harm and offenses against the German tax code.[3] Ewa had been under investigation by the organised crime department of Frankfurt Police for several months, and was alleged to have brought young female fans, between the ages of 17 and 19, to a hotel room and offered to lend them money for costs such as rent, clothing, cosmetics and petrol, then forced them into prostitution to repay this debt.[4]

Discography

Albums
Title Release Chart position
Germany
[11]		 Austria
[13]		 Switzerland
[14]
Kurwa
  • Date: 9 January 2015[15]
  • Label: Alles Oder Nix Records
 11 28 34
Mixtapes

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Jakob Paur (2014). "Schwesta Ewa – The Art of Storytelling". Juice (in German). No. 161. p. 40–43. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kathrin Rosendorff (17 November 2016). "Rapperin soll Fans zu Prostitution gezwungen haben". Frankfurter Rundschau (in German). Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Machte „Schwesta Ewa" minderjährige Fans zu Prostituierten?". Focus (in German). 16 November 2016. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Polizei ermittelte seit Monaten gegen Rapperin „Schwesta Ewa"". Focus (in German). 18 November 2016. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 "Mein Vater ist ein Mörder". Schwesta Ewa bei Letzte Runde #3. Letzte Runde. 26 May 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  6. 1 2 ""Ich war auf Crack"". Schwesta Ewa bei Letzte Runde #4. Letzte Runde. 26 May 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  7. ↑ "Goldraub von Ludwigsburg - Xatar im Irak festgenommen". Stuttgart Journal (in German). 19 February 2010. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  8. ↑ "Xatar in Prison". Vice. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  9. ↑ "Interview: Schwesta Ewa über "Realität"". 16bars.de (in German). Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  10. ↑ "Kein Zurück in den Puff". Schwesta Ewa bei Letzte Runde #1. Letzte Runde. 24 May 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  11. 1 2 "Schwesta Ewa/Longplay-Chartverfolgung" (in German). www.musicline.de. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  12. ↑ Ilka Wiese (17 November 2016). "Rapperin Schwesta Ewa in Arnsberg festgenommen". Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 21 November 2016.
  13. ↑ "Schwesta Ewa Austrian Albums Chart" (in German). austriancharts.at. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  14. ↑ "Schwesta Ewa Swiss Albums Chart" (in German). hitparade.ch. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  15. ↑ "Schwesta Ewa – Kurwa". www.discogs.com. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
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