He wants clubs recognized as "cultural sites": Former singer and music manager Joe Chialo from the CDU now steps into the role of culture senator, running a $1 billion budget.Joe Chialo is relatively new to politics but is set to assume the high-profile role of Minister for Culture in Berlin. He replaces Left Party (Die Linke) politician and former deputy mayor of Berlin, Klaus Lederer.

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The reshuffling of positions is a result of the new coalition government agreement reached between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD).

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After a long career in music, Chialo, who only joined the Christian Democrats in 2016, is expected to inject some fresh perspectives into one of Europe's leading cultural capitals.

Having run unsuccessfully for a seat in the last federal election, the Berlin senator who ran a music label and sang in heavy metal bands now has a chance to promote Berlin's high culture, but also its grassroots creativity — and especially its legendary club scene.

A man who earns his money with culture

Chialo is not your typical conservative CDU politician.

The son of a Tanzanian diplomat, he was born in Bonn in 1970 and was not initially granted German citizenship. His parents moved around the world as diplomats, leaving him and his brother behind at boarding school.

After studying politics, history and political science, Chialo dropped out of university and pursued a career as a musician.

He became the singer of Blue Manner Haze, a band combining heavy metal with funk and hip hop. Chialo has since compared the musical complexity of metal with classical music.

The avowed fan of German hard rock band Rammstein also had a stint as a bouncer at a Nuremberg discotheque.

Joe Chialo then segued into the role of music manager at Universal Music, where he was primarily responsible for marketing African artists in Germany and Europe. He founded two labels of his own, under which he also marketed Irish-American band, The Kelly Family — who are hugely popular in German.

Promoting Berlin's club scene

So what can Joe Chialo offer as Berlin's culture tsar, and what does he know about high culture?

Tasks such as naming the new general director of Berlin's largest opera house, Deutsche Oper, and defining Berlin's role in the controversial Humboldt Forum, will be on his to-do list.

But Chialo insists that culture should not be elitist. Whether it's the club scene, theaters, operas or museums, all have have a valid place in the cultural life of the capital, he says.

Which is why Chialo wants to recognize Berlin's clubs as "cultural sites."

"Clubs are talent factories, make an important cultural contribution, they make inner cities more attractive [and] attract audiences," he told the Berliner Zeitung.

"Culture is not an elitist event and not just for Berlin-Mitte," he said of the city center where the major museums and classical music venues tend to reside. And just like cultural life can be found across many Berlin districts, "there have to be clubs everywhere too," he said.

Berlin as global cultural hub

Chialo also hopes that culture can better work with business to attract more global creative entrepreneurs to Berlin.

As an active promoter of African culture and music for decades, this is in contrast to his predecessor Klaus Lederer who, while embracing diversity including queer culture, is perceived as less cosmopolitan.

Chialo, who in his autobiography describes himself as a proud "Afropolitan," also encourages culture to confront Germany's colonial past.

He would like to promote alternative narratives of German life, including the success stories of migrants.

A chance to reshape culture in the capital

But the anointed culture senator doesn't want to become a symbol of wokeness and a focus for debates around racism, he has said.

He might want to stay in line with the center-right politics of the CDU. But as a politician who symbolizes diversity, he doesn't fit the party stereotype.

In the 1990s, Chialo was a member of the Green Party. But the treatment of Greens leader and former vice-chancellor of Germany, Joschka Fischer, who was Chialo's inspiration, drove him from the party.

It was chancellor Angelia Merkel's willingness to welcome refugees fleeing war in Syria in 2015 that convinced Chialo to join the CDU a year later.

Whether Chialo will shape culture in Berlin differently than his predecessors remains to be seen.

Even though the new coalition agreement devotes only six of 136 pages to culture, it is an office holding a gigantic budget (€928 million, or $1 billion, in 2023), adding hope that Joe Chialo can refocus the power and potential of Berlin's cultural life.

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 27, 2023 05:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).