Nico Semsrott

Nico Semsrott (born 11 March 1986) is a German Kabarett artist, politician (Die PARTEI) and slam poet who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2019.

Entertainment
In school, he founded the satirical school newspaper Sophie's Underworld (Sophies Unterwelt) together with his younger brother, Arne Semsrott at the Hamburg Sophie-Barat-Schule. Its sale was banned on the school grounds by the school's headmistress.

Since 2008, Semsrott has portrayed a depressive persona on Poetry slams and cabarets. His first solo show, titled "Joy is just a lack of information" (Freude ist nur ein Mangel an Informationen), premiered on 14 June 2012 in Hamburg. He performed updated versions from Autumn 2014 until Christmas 2018. In 2019, Semsrott announced a pause in favor of his political work. Semsrott was part of the ZDF heute-show team from 2017 until 2019, hosting the segment No Fun Facts.

Politics
Semsrott ran in the 2017 German federal election as leading candidate for Berlin for Die PARTEI, a satirical German political party, receiving 2.1% of the votes.

In the 2019 European elections, Semsrott was elected to the European Parliament as the second party-list candidate (behind Martin Sonneborn) from Die PARTEI. His Party recived 2.4%. Unlike other elections in germany, there is no 5%- threshold concerning the European Parliament elections. In the preelection Semsrott criticized less keeping attention to younger generations in an Tv advertisement. A survey made after the election showed that votes for "die PARTEI" came especially from first-time voters (about 9% of this group).

Awards

 * 2009: Winner NDR-Comedy Contest
 * 2010: Karl-Marx-Poesie-Preis
 * 2011: Stuttgarter Besen, audience award
 * 2011: Kleines Passauer Scharfrichterbeil (3. place)
 * 2011: Winner NDR-Comedy Contest
 * 2012: Die Freiburger Leiter
 * 2014: Bayerischer Kabarettpreis, Senkrechtstarter
 * 2017: Deutscher Kleinkunstpreis, category cabaret