From East German punk provocateur to a voice of Hindu devotion, her music never settled.
For her range, listen to 'Der Wind Hat Mir Ein Lied Erzählt' next to 'Jai Mata Kali, Jai Mata Durge'. It's all her, just years apart.
She fled East Germany in 1976 after her lyrics got her in trouble, then made a name in the West with songs that could swing from a cabaret-style ballad like 'Der Wind Hat Mir Ein Lied Erzählt' to a spiritual declaration like 'Jesus ist ein Freund von mir'. By the early '80s, she was folding Indian chants and Hindu themes into her work, a shift clear in tracks like 'Naturträne' and the devotional 'Jai Mata Kali, Jai Mata Durge'.
She started in the East German band Automobil before her outspokenness forced a move west. Her solo albums in the late '70s and early '80s, from 'Nina Hagen Band' to 'Nunsexmonkrock', document that restless energy. Then she embraced Hinduism, and her music began to reflect that spiritual turn.
Keep it compact: a lyric you come back to, a live memory, or the part of the catalog you would point someone toward first.
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