CLEMENS Born 1979 in Roskilde, Denmark. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark   © Clemens   Clemens started his career in 1989 as a club DJ for a local youth club in Sønderborg, Denmark. The impertinent “Copenhagen snout” quickly built up a reputation for himself in the small province by rewriting and reciting MC Einar's lines, which he used to impress the girls. In close co-operation with Lars Jensen (a.k.a. L-Ron-Harald), Clemens honed his rap skills through his teenage years. This led to a second prize in the Danish Rap Championship in 1993. Clemens began to freestyle and was, in 1996, so well trained that he was ready to take first prize in a large-scale underground competition, where he beat the then Danish champion. Next, Clemens appeared at the Danish Championship again, almost out of fun, and won anyway. In 1997, Clemens released his debut album Regnskabets Time, which received great commercial success. Then, he went on tour with sold-out concerts throughout the country. The tour also went to Greenland where Clemens spent three weeks and recorded a track with Nuuk Posse. The follow-up, Den Anden Verden, was released in 1999 and won lots of critical acclaim. Clemens' name as a serious artist was sealed. The same year, Clemens started a co-operation with the Swedish rapper Petter and guest-rapped on Petter's second album Bananrepublikken. In 2000, Clemens participated in Petter's tour with gigs throughout Sweden and some gigs in Norway and Finland. Following that, Clemens took part in the compilation album, Scandalnavia, with a wealth of Scandinavian artists. This lead to several gigs abroad, especially in Norway. Clemens also had his own TV show on the national Danish channel TV2, and Den Anden Verden was awarded a Grammy and a grant from The Danish Arts Foundation. In 2001, Clemens released his third album Professionel Bla Bla which, amongst other things, was awarded the prize for Hip-hop Radio Hit of the Year. Clemens made his debut as an actor in 2002 in the theater production 11komma7; a play which Clemens co-wrote with Peter Langdahl and Al Agami. Clemens received a grant from the Wilhelm Hansen Foundation for his “outstanding” performance. The year after, Clemens wrote all the text material for a new interpretation of The Nutcracker. The production was a big success – completely sold out with five-star reviews. The Nutcracker won a Reumert, a Copenhagen Prize, and the Danish Hip-hop Prize. Clemens is currently working on his fourth album to be released by the end of 2004. In addition, he is writing on new plays and is helping other artists by writing lyrics for them through the company The Lyrics Laboratory, of which Clemens is the director.   Contribution: Performs during the concert event “Culture in Democracy” on Saturday, October 23, 2004, from 7:30 pm – 3 am in Station 1: The Equestrian Hall, Aarhus.