CLUESO
BIOGRAPHY
Thomas Hübner (born 9 April 1980), better known by his stage name Clueso —named after Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther—, is a German singer, rapper, songwriter, and producer. His music is notable for being a mix of hip hop, pop and electronic music, and sometimes reggae.
Clueso started making music in 1995. In 1998, he got to know his future manager Andreas Welskop. His first vinyl, Clüsolo, was released on BMG Ufa the same year. In 1999, he moved to the 10vor10-Studios in Cologne with Welskop. A year later, he signed a label contract at Four Music and released Text und Ton in 2001. Around that time, he performed with Curfew at the MTV HipHop Open in Stuttgart and at Beats for Life in Cologne.
In 2002, Clueso moved back to Erfurt and recorded the Rowdy-Club-Tape 2002. One year later, he started producing his second album Gute Musik, which translates to "Good Music" (featuring Blumentopf, Steer M, Tilmann Jarmer, Delhia, Tim Neuhaus and Jürgen Kerth), which was finished by 2004. In 2005, Clueso represented Thuringia in the Bundesvision Song Contest 2005 with the song "Kein Bock zu gehen". The same year, he was the partner of Start Ab, the "biggest non-commercial remix contest in Europe". On 19 May 2006, his third album, Weit weg, was released. In conjunction with the STÜBAphilharmonie, a Thuringian orchestra, Clueso gave a concert in the Fritz-Club in Berlin on 3 February 2007, where he performed his songs together with the orchestra and his band in an arrangement for more than 70 instruments. On 14 February 2008, Clueso again represented Thuringia in Stefan Raab's Bundesvision Song Contest. With his song "Keinen Zentimeter", he came second, only one point behind the winner. On 30 May 2008, his fourth album So sehr dabei was released. His next studio album An und für sich ("In and of itself") was released on 25 March 2011. The same year, Clueso collaborated with Udo Lindenberg performing the song "Cello" on the album MTV Unplugged – Live im Hotel Atlantic. The song was also released as a single and reached number 4 in the German charts. After having released number 1 album Stadtrandlichter in 2014, Clueso parted ways with his long-standing band and management team. He wrote his following album about this period of separation and fittingly named it Neuanfang"("New Beginning"). The album reached number 1 of the German charts.
After the release of Neuanfang, he started working on a new album called Handgepäck I ("Hand Luggage I"), a collection of acoustic songs that he has written and collected over the last seven years during several trips and journeys around the world.
Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award 2015 to Joan Baez and Ai Wei Wei.
