Best German Battle Rappers
In German hip hop's earlier times there were freestyle battles in the style of America's battle competitions as seen in the movie "8 Mile", but as German hip hop got more and more popular, written rap battles and internet rap tournaments became really big. In such, the participants record diss tracks aimed at each other and shoot music videos, which they upload on the tournament's YouTube channel then. Nowadays, when refering to German battle rap, people usually mean the latter. Germam battle rap had great impact on German mainstream hip hop of the 2010s, and several artists that took part in online battle rap tournaments released successful and even chart topping albums. Among the biggest tournaments are JuliensBlogBattle, Video Battle Turnier and Rap am Mittwoch.
Dimitri Chpakov, better known by his stage names SpongeBozz and Sun Diego, is a German rapper of Russian descent born on March 17th, 1989.Before becoming SpongeBozz, Chpakov was known under the pseudonym Sun Diego. He was a collaborator and friend of Kollegah, as well as a part of the rap crew Moneyrain. Even though many critics complimented Chpakov’s doubletime rapping and rhymes, he was frequently panned for his sung choruses, his use of autotune and his feminine attitude despite his thug inspired lyrics. He was widely regarded a wack MC at that moment, and suddenly vanished from the German rap scene when his friendship with Kollegah ended in 2012. ...read more.
Let’s talk about the entire career of SpongeBozz:
In 2011, Kollegah released his album “Bossaura”, which was Kollegah’s first album that hit the German top 10. This is most likely partly due to a review by German YouTube celebrity JuliensBlog. Afterwards, Kollegah would be the leading figure of German hip hop until now (rightfully so). On the review there were guest parts by then-unknown rapper Sun Diego that JuliensBlog was not so fond of. He said that he has certain skills but bashed the autotune he uses. Later on, JuliensBlog uploaded another video focusing exclusively on Sun Diego but this time a bit more aggressive, making fun of his choruses and autotune, making Sun Diego look like some kind of joke. Basically, his career was ended and also Kollegah did not collaborate with him again.
In 2012, JuliensBlog, who was mostly known as a dark humored comedian and not so much as a music critic, hosted the first JuliensBlogBattle internet rap tournament. The ...more
Won the 2015 JuliensBlogBattle and also participated in the 2014 JBB. Instead of doubletime raps and "coolness" he focuses on dark and creepy atmosphere, horrorcore elements and a memorable overall tone.
His 2017 debut album hit the German top 10 but was not as blockbuster-ish as SpongeBozz's, but in my opinion it is nevertheless a great album, but he completely abandoned his diss track-ish style in favor for music that follows a concept. It propably wasn't what people were expecting.
Kenneth Glöckler, better known by his stage names Kay One and Prince Kay One, is a German rapper of Filipino descent, born on September 7, 1984. Kay got famous due to his exceptionally skilled freestyle raps, causing him to win several battle rap tournaments. After having been a featured artist on several tracks by different rappers, he finally signed to Bushido’s label ersguterjunge where he released 2 solo albums and became part of the supergroup Berlins Most Wanted (along Bushido and Fler), which released one studio album, in the early 2010s. ...read more. The only freestyle MC that took part in 8 Mile style battles I added.
Unfortunately, most of his albums didn't have the caliber to match the high expectations. He made mostly party rap, until he released his 2015 album "JGUDZS" which had a more battle-ish style.
Felix Antoine Blume, better known by his stage name Kollegah, is a German rapper of Canadian descent born on August 3rd, 1984. He is widely credited to have established multisyllabic rhyming and doubletime rapping in German hip hop. ...read more.
Farid Hamed El Abdellaoui, better known by his stage name Farid Bang, is a German rapper of Maroccan descent born on June 4, 1986. ...read more.