For quite a few years now (ever since hanging out with J-Man back in college) I have been a fan of German-language rap. However, it sort of dawned on me the other day that I haven't really gotten much in the way of stuff newer than late-90s era Deutsch rap (with the exception of getting newer albums by those perennial favorites, Fettes Brot and Die Fantastischen Vier), so, I went digging a bit, and found a few newer things. My taste in rap generally tends away from more "traditional" hip-hop and rap sounds, and more towards rapping in a different musical context, so I'm always excited to find good stuff like this.

I should say, for the record, that my German is what I'd call "ok", meaning I can have conversations, but much of the lyrical content in these songs zips right by me. So, it's entirely possible that I could be posting songs by terrible lyricists and don't even know it.

First off is Peter Fox, whom I discovered as the "feat." artist in the "Marry Me" single by the excellent Miss Platnum.



I dig the orchestral riff a lot, and the drums drive the song nicely. It doesn't have a hip-hop beat, really, just a sort-of pulsing rhythm driven by the Cold Steel Drumline, who appear in the video as well (watch through to the end to see a bit of a tag with some extra bits focusing on them. This single is from Fox's album Stadtaffe, German for "City Ape", thus the masks. (Another track from the same record, "Schwarz zu Blau" also features the ape masks, as well as the Drumline guys and a nice 3:3:2 beat.)

His previous band, a dancehall outfit called Seeed, has some decent stuff as well.

From there, I found Sido, whom I immediately connected to MF Doom, as he often wears a metallic mask, but there's really no similarity in their styles. Here's a live appearance on Mtv Europe, performing "Rodeo", featuring the aforementioned Peter Fox, but without the skull mask:



Among his many projects over the years, Sido collaborated with Harris in a duo amusingly named Deine Lieblings Rapper ("Your Favorite Rapper"). Sido has a reputation for dark and confrontational lyrics, and I imagine this track, "Steh Wieder Auf", is no exception:



I really wish my German were better; the wisps of stuff I catch in passing are really quite crazy (similar to another, non-rap track that's a fave of mine from back in the day).

One more quick one: when looking through youtube for something to post here, I couldn't resist their eponymous track, simply because the music is a bit reminiscent of Wonky, in that it's quite a bit off-kilter, beat-wise, for quite a bit of the song:



It's not Wonky per se, but it's got enough similarities that I think I'm going to bust out some Zomby.