BERLIN, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Echo music prize in Germany has lost a first corporate sponsor on Wednesday as a result of a widely publicized scandal surrounding the nomination of two allegedly antisemitic rappers for the 2018 "Best hip-hop album" award.
German juice producer Voelkel announced it would cut all ties to the prestigious music event organized annually by the Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI). Voelkel's issue is that an award-winning song of the duo "Kollegah & Farid Bang" had made a "shameful comparison with victims of the Holocaust."
On the exact same day as Israel commemorated the mass-murder of Jews during World War II, the organizers of the Echo chose to publicly honor the two "gangster" rappers for songs in which they boasted of "having a better-defined body than Auschwitz survivors" and encouraged listeners to "start a Holocaust."
"The honoring on the exclusive basis of sales figures without sufficient prior critical assessment casts an unfavorable light on the Echo committee," a statement by Voelkel read. Nevertheless, Voelkel welcomed announcements by the BVMI to redesign the criteria for future awards.
Earlier, the car maker Skoda warned it would also end its sponsorship of the Echo unless there was a "swift" and "clear" reaction by the BVMI to the scandal. A host of musicians have already renounced their own Echo prizes to protest the incident.
The classical music conductor Enoch zu Guttenberg wrote that it would be a "disgrace" to keep his own prize from the year 2008, saying the award had been handed to "the authors of disgusting antisemitic tirades" without "any intervention" on behalf of the Echo ethics committee.
"The former symbol of good artisanal work has transformed into a dirty warning sign for a development in our country which causes us great concern," the conductor added on behalf of his orchestra in an open letter to Echo.
Addressing public fears over growing hatred towards Jews in Germany on Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged her support to help win the "fight against antisemitism."
