After brain tumor: rapper Lord Torture is dead – he was 31 years old

The Düsseldorf underground rapper Lord Folter died on February 17, 2023 at the age of 31 from a brain tumor. This was announced by his family via Instagram on Monday (March 5). Under the post, fans and other rappers express their grief. Among them Moebel MC, Audio88, Dissy and Neromun.

Lord Torture’s real name was Julian Wachendorf. His career began with the 2015 album BRACH. At this time, Wachendorf was also studying free art at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. He was part of the Cologne hip hop collective and label Nyati. With their support, his own label Babygroove was founded in 2021. Next to 2017’s ROUGE, the 2020 album 1992DAY is without doubt his best-known work. It transports the rapper’s idiosyncrasy and vision at its purest.

underground and dissenting voice

Lord Folter’s musical oeuvre includes five solo albums, two EPs and the collaboration album NACHTALB with Joe Space, released under the name Lord Space. His rap centers emotions in lyrical-fragmentary, partly abstract texts. The sound is determined by rather unconventional beats that leave the necessary space for his use of language. FARCE, which was released in 2022, was oriented more towards indie pop in places.

Behind his music there was always the claim to take a counter-position to the zeitgeist. In an interview about the scene here, Lord Torture 2021 said:

“The scene has just changed a lot. When we started back then, we had completely different approaches, Dadaistically dissolving lyrical poetic approaches, today it’s a lot about smoking weed, drinking, wearing the coolest clothes, always being super smart politically and wanting to please everyone. As if people no longer had their own identities, as if they were robots of the Internet.”

Wachendorf made his diagnosis public at the end of 2021. On Instagram he posted a photo from the hospital showing him after surgery for the tumor. Despite the certainly demanding follow-up care, he then released the full-length FARCE in August 2022. At the beginning of 2023, the joint EP with Lebenssaft WE WILL SEE followed. He leaves behind two children.

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