Nena

Born: 1960

Singer

Gabriele Susanne Kerner was born in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia. She became world famous under her nickname “Nena” with her success song “99 Luftballons” (99 Red Balloons”). She was one of the few German pop-singers that had commercial success in the US.

Nena joined her first band “The Stripes” around 1977 and had the hit “Ecstasy“. In 1981 Nena and then boyfriend Rolf Brendel moved to West Berlin, where they met up with their future band members. Some of their most famous hits include: „Nur geträumt“ (Only dreamt), „Leuchturm“ (Lighthouse), and Nena's most famous hit to date “99 Luftballons“ (99 Red Balloons). The song reached international acclaim and became famous in the US in part because it got into the hands of California based DJs.

The band “Nena” split up in 1989. After recording a number of CD’s with children’s songs in the 90s, in 2002 Nena had a tremendous success in 2002 with her album „Nena feat. Nena“. In 2005 she released „Willst du mit mir gehen?“ (Do You Wanna Go with

Me?) which quickly reached platinum status in Germany.

Her subsequent tour was sold-out. The first single of the new album „Liebe ist” ( Love Is), quickly rose to number one in Germany’s charts, and was featured as the theme song to the popular German TV soap opera “Verliebt in Berlin“ ( In Love in Berlin), the German version of the US-show “Ugly Betty“.

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