Thomas Hübner (born 9 April 1980), better known by his stage name Clueso (), is a German singer, rapper, songwriter, and producer. His first album, Text und Ton, was released in 2001. Since then, he has released seven more albums, of which the last three—Stadtrandlichter (2014), Neuanfang (2016) and Handgepäck I (2018)—reached number 1 of the German Top 100. His music is notable for being a mix of hip hop, pop and electronic music, and sometimes reggae. Career Born in Erfurt, Clueso—named after Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther—started making music in 1995. In 1998, he got to know his future manager Andreas Welskop and gave up his hairdressing apprenticeship. His first vinyl, Clüsolo, was released on BMG Ufa the same year. In 1999, he moved to the 10vor10-Studios in Cologne with Welskop. A year later, he signed a label contract at Four Music and released Text und Ton in 2001. Around that time, he performed with Curfew at the MTV HipHop Open in Stuttgart and at Beats for Life in Cologne. In 2002, Clueso moved back to Erfurt and recorded the Rowdy-Club-Tape 2002. One year later, he started producing his second album Gute Musik, which translates to "Good Music" (featuring Blumentopf, Steer M, Tilmann Jarmer, Delhia, Tim Neuhaus and Jürgen Kerth), which was finished by 2004. It does not contain any English tracks and concentrates on singing rather than rapping. In 2005, Clueso represented Thuringia in the Bundesvision Song Contest 2005 with the song "Kein Bock zu gehen", placing seventh with 63 points. The same year, he was the partner of Start Ab, the "biggest non-commercial remix contest in Europe". On 19 May 2006, his third album, Weit weg, was released. In conjunction with the STÜBAphilharmonie, a Thuringian orchestra, Clueso gave a concert in the Fritz-Club in Berlin on 3 February 2007, where he performed his songs together with the orchestra and his band in an arrangement for more than 70 instruments. This concert was also released on the DVD Clueso Live or Clueso – Weit weg – Live. In May and June 2007, Clueso was the opening act of Herbert Grönemeyer's 12-Tour and in the same year he was nominated by 1 live for the 1 live radio listener's award, the 1LIVE Krone, in the category "Best Live Act". In September 2007, the single "Lala", a song, which was especially recorded for the movie Leroy, was released. On