Nicknamed "the Godmother of German Punk," Nina Hagen rose to fame as part of the emerging post-punk era with 1978's Nina Hagen Band, a Top 20 album in her native Germany. Dropping the "band," she found her way onto the Billboard 200 in the U.S. with 1982's Nunsexmonkrock and the next year's Fearless, albums that helped establish her uncompromising, alternately passionate and playful art-punk and distinctly theatrical delivery. Always one to favor her muse over the whims of the mainstream, she released an album of Hindu bhajans in 1999 (Om Namah Shivay), collaborated with the Leipzig Big Band on 2003's Big Band Explosion, and focused on music with religious themes on 2010's Personal Jesus. It landed Hagen in Germany's Top 20 for the first time in over 30 years. Anti-establishment and civil rights themes populated 2022's Unity.