Ikke Hüftgold

Behind the black wig, tracksuit and raised middle finger stands Matthias Distel, born in 1976 in Limburg an der Lahn, who works as a party schlager singer, lyricist and producer. Before the Ikke Hüftgold character took hold, Distel fronted rock bands for over a decade and wrote children's radio plays, experience that still shapes his studio work. He describes the figure as satire, and it is as much a comic construction as a musical one, which the crowds at Mallorca's Bierkönig have readily taken up.

His breakthrough came in 2014 with Dicke Titten, Kartoffelsalat, which became a Ballermann hit, and So gehn die Gauchos, recorded with Willi Herren, marked his first entry in the German singles chart. Its melody draws on the children's song Ich kenne einen Cowboy, and the national football team sang it at the Berlin homecoming after winning the 2014 World Cup. Alongside his partner Dominik de Leon, he runs the Summerfield Group in Heiligenroth, which produces for many acts. In 2021 he stepped back from the Ikke Hüftgold persona to pursue rock under his own name, releasing Ich schwanke noch that May.