Nine German gangsta rap albums that changed everything

In super popular hip hop, gangsta rap is the most popular of all popular forms of play. No wonder, because the gangster is not just a gangster. The gangster is a projection screen. The great possibility of identification lies in the underlying narrative, which is always also an ascent narrative. Not just wanting to make it to the top with diligence and hard work, but wanting to use all the other means necessary – that is a universal experience that works not only in Berlin Wedding, but also in Buxtehude in northern Germany. The gangster is the symbol, the personification of social Darwinist capitalism, which has long since been elevated to the ideal in a young generation and has long since ceased to be questioned. These nine classic albums reflect the evolution of the genre. And the story of the German gangster.

Those who want to understand the history of the rise and fall of German gangsta rap can follow these nine albums. They trace the evolution and the most important stages of the genre. And they reflect the history of the German gangster. It’s in the nature of things that the list isn’t completely free of unproblematic characters, but is all the more free of female protagonists. The success of gangsta rap has always been based on the fact that it was an expression of a value-conservative and neo-liberal world view, the gangster himself is the symbol, the personification of social Darwinist capitalism, which was raised to the ideal for a long time and hardly ever questioned.

Although there have always been important female protagonists in the history of German gangsta rap, such as Kitty Kat or Schwesta Ewa, who as a whole were important figures for the genre, they were never able to leave a lasting footprint in the form of an album. So this list also reflects the success of a genre that resulted from staging itself as a counter-movement to the progressive pop mainstream.

1. Bushido/Fler: CARLO COKXXX WHORES (2002)

At the end of the 1990s, German rap was still associated in the collective consciousness with the pleasant, middle-class feel-good rap that dominated the charts and radio airplay. But a lively underground scene had already established itself in Berlin, which focused on much more brute topics. With the collabo-album “CCN” this new heaviness found its first, perfect expression at the beginning of the new century. “I’ll come to the party and cause stress for no reason” says the title track and from then on was not just an announcement, but also a paradigm of a new era, which from then on cultivated the joy of bullying and bullying.

2. Bushido: FROM THE CURB TO THE SKYLINE (2003)

With “CCN” Bushido burned down the established foundations of German hip-hop culture together with Fler, and with “VBBZS” he single-handedly rebuilt them a year later. From that moment on, hard street rap on melancholic, gloomy gothic and electro beats defined how German gangsta rap should sound and Bushido himself became the archetype of the ignorant migrant underdog at the very latest with this album, who simply took what society gave him in his opinion state. That had superstar potential.

3. Xatar: NO. 415 (2012)

When gangsta rap reached the preliminary peak of its commercial heyday and the rest of the republic imitated what was being played in Berlin, there was a real competition to see which gangster was more gangster. Musicality took a backseat, records were now sold by whoever had the best and most authentic story. The Bonn rapper Xatar finally put an end to the overbidding competition in terms of street credibility with this work, because this was the superlative of gangsta rap authenticity. Xatar had ambushed a gold truck, stolen millions, fled across national borders until he ended up in a northern Iraqi torture prison. When German target investigators finally transferred him to a German prison, he had a dictaphone smuggled in and recorded the album 415 in his cell. Named after his prison number. More gangsta was no longer possible.

4. ARREST WARRANT: RUSSIAN ROULETTE (2014)

An arrest warrant was also issued to break the Berlin gangsta rap supremacy from Frankfurt. His rap style was awkward but authentic. His lyrical brutality unfolded its own aesthetic through the completely natural integration of foreign words, which he was able to combine with a bombastic sound production for the first time on RUSSISCH ROULETTE. The hip-hop trade magazine “Die Zeit” then voted him a modern Goethe, which of course he wasn’t, because the modern Goethe didn’t even know who the classical Goethe was supposed to be. It’s a story that the German feuilleton from now on exaggerates everything that Haftzettel did to such an extent that, under the pressure of expectations, it didn’t do anything from which one could still expect anything. From then on he lost the street and won over the bourgeoisie.

5. Kollegah: PIMP TAPE (2005)

PIMPLE TAPE was a game changer. Never before and never since has German gangsta rap sounded so eloquent, never before has content been so subservient to form. “Showtime” is the name Kollegah gave to a song that he stretched out over several parts over the course of his career, and that was exactly the essence of this record. It was about proving lyrical and technical dominance. The fact that Kollegah, whose real name was Felix Antoine Blume, was anything but a gangster and at the same time enrolled in law studies while working on his music, made the whole thing all the more exciting. Kollegah turned gangsta rap into a technically brilliant high-gloss entertainment package and freed it from the ballast of the hunger for authenticity. It was still a few years before his breakthrough, but all the basics for it were already laid out in his debut work.

6. Azet: FAST LIFE (2017)

The KMN gang from Dresden, yes, really, that’s right, from Dresden, ushered in the third generation of German gangsta rap. While Aggro Berlin around Bushido, Sido and Fler were still pushing the doors open with verbally aggressive brutality and had to fight for their place in music history, a Kollegah had meanwhile managed to break all sales records. Gangsta rap was now a million-dollar business and the ghetto cultural area as the place of origin was no longer a blemish, but rather a privilege for the self-confident rapper of the new generation. The mood in the country had changed accordingly. A new generation of migrants had meanwhile arrived. Their cultural codes, their language had become pop culture. A new lightness set in and the KMN gang around Miami Yacine, Nash, Zuna and Azet found a sound for this new mood. The lyrics were still street, but the sound was sticky-sweet and drenched in autotune. No wonder this very music became the soundtrack for a new hookah bar lifestyle that would sweep the country.

7. Bonez MC/RAF Camora: PLASTIC PALM TREES (2016)

PALMEN AUS PLASTIK was also created as part of the new musical liberalization of gangsta rap, which liberated the genre from the classic 160bpm Bushido type beats. While the KMN gang tried a pop variant, the 187 Strassenbande from Hamburg established a German dancehall variant as the sound framework. It never sounded as mature as on the collaboration album between 187-head Bonez and the Austrian RAF Camora, who was probably responsible for the visionary beat design. The album reached double platinum, several singles even diamond.

8. Fler: VIBE (2016)

Fler is perhaps one of the most insane, but certainly also one of the most versatile artists in the country – an artist who never tires of reinventing himself and his sound over and over again. With Bushido he brought modern gangsta rap to Germany. He established it with Aggro Berlin. With his best, but unfortunately terribly underestimated album “HINTER BLAUEN AUGEN”, he heaved a form of Miami-Playa rap suitable for the masses into the charts and with BLAUES BLUT he was the first established artist to go for trap. Nobody understood that then. Today everyone does it. Fler was often ahead of his time, with VIBE he synchronized his sound with the zeitgeist. Trap was now accepted, on VIBE Fler managed to make a hit out of every song. He should never be that focused and on point again afterwards.

9. Apache 207: PLATE (2019)

With PLATTE, Apache buries German gangsta rap as we know it and transforms it into pop for good. Apache 207 is a child of the younger gangsta rap era, which established a catchy sound suitable for the masses alongside hard street lyrics. Apache took up this style, used the street codes practiced in the younger generation, but now, as the last bastion, also liberated the lyrics from the verbal aggressive iconography that was typical of them. In doing so, he finally opened up the genre, which had become toothless, to radio and the general public. The plan worked. Apache is the most successful artist in Germany today.