Sometimes you gotta be spontaneous: last week I took one and a half days off of my new job and went to Cologne to see a „concert“ of a weird American You Tube guy called Marc Rebillet who has literally just become (Internet-)famous during the past year. You might ask yourself now: why did she put the word „concert“ in quotation marks and what the hell is she doing spending her precious vacation days on crap like this? Well, let me tell you: It. Was. Worth. It. (And this is coming from a girl who never ever watches „funny“ You Tube videos and who doesn’t bother clicking on any video in her Facebook feed at all, except for hot Zumba choreographies and maybe – maybe! – some stuff on sustainability and climate change).
About the „concert“: In order to understand what Marc Rebillet is doing on stage you simply have to watch his videos (this is one of my favorites and here you can see a recording of the show in Cologne). He creates music on the spot, using just his brain and his loop station – which is why his fans call him “loop daddy”. He builds up his songs by recording one track after the other and looping them – percussion, bass, piano melodies, brass instruments, his own voice, everything. He tackles various different genres – funk, soul, rap, house – and makes up his (mostly) very funny lyrics on the go. Sometimes the crowd shouts a word or a phrase at him and he then uses this as inspiration for the next song he creates live on stage. It really is amazing how creative and musically talented he is (for the sake of politeness, I refrain from mentioning his questionable dance moves – dude, you should really learn how to properly shake your ass!)
But the most important part of my mid-week-vacation was: while having been greatly entertained, I also took away some learnings from Marc Rebillet’s art and his personality. Here it goes.
1. Don’t be afraid to look like an idiot
When Marc is onstage, he commits to his performance one hundred percent. He screams appalling stuff into his microphone, he wears the bra that is being thrown at him and he sings about his genitals as if this was the most normal thing to do. But you know what never happens? Although all of those things might be pretty idiotic on their own, he never looks idiotic onstage. His magical aura and his musical genius paired with the fact that you can see how much he enjoys himself make it an amazing show to watch. And for me it suddenly became clear: no matter what it is you love to do – dancing, singing, acting, stripping – you will never look like an idiot when you do it with all your heart.
2. Intelligence doesn’t have to be sophisticated
R. Kelly is a piece of shit. Fuck Donal Trump. Stop that goddamn motherfucking rape. While I probably would have rephrased those statements before recording a song with them, I still strongly agree with the message. And I respect the fact that Marc doesn’t feel the need to be politically correct in his songs – he just says what he thinks without trying to be polite. That made me realize: Intelligence doesn’t always have to be expressed in a sophisticated way, it can also be bold, direct and vulgar.
3. Don’t try to please everybody
Whatever it is that Marc Rebillet is doing (music? comedy? art? nonsense?), it will not please everyone. And that is absolutely okay. If you try to please everyone you will only end up being a mediocre schmuck who has lost all authenticity. And let’s face it: what’s more important in today’s ego-centric Instagram-society than authenticity? I guess authenticity is what made him famous and you know what? How boring would the world be if everybody liked the same stuff. What the hell would we talk about?
4. Crazy is good
Most days in most of our lives are probably pretty normal. You go to work, meet normal people, attend some meetings where you try to look professional by saying intelligent things, go home, throw some spaghetti in the pot and go to sleep. No surprises, no inspiration, nothing unusual. And then there are those moments where you break out of your usual everyday-pattern and do something crazy: like deciding to drive to the North Sea on a Friday Night to see the sunrise by the bay although you live 700 km away. Like leaving your good friend’s wedding very early to go Salsa-dancing with that guy you met last week at the coffee place. Like meeting for a date at the airport and buying blind booking tickets that might take you anywhere in Europe depending on which airline has seats left for you. Marc’s show puts you in exactely this anything-can-happen mood, that excites pure happiness. It’s like a musical drug that gets you high on spontaneousness – so why should we not try to transfer this feeling to everyday life? Crazy is good, so let’s be a little less conventional a little more often.
Things I overthought 