Top Ten Music Videos in German Hip Hop
The music video is a visualization of the story told in the song:
It tells the story of a young woman from a conservative Muslim family, who falls in love with a German and loses her virginity to him. The word spreads until it reaches her brother, who then shoots both of them, and himself. Eko Fresh is seen as a pall bearer at a funeral. The video ends with a sentence on the screen translating to "Dedicated to all victims of honor killings".
Eko Fresh himself is a Muslim, but probably the nicest and most open-minded celebrity I have ever seen. In most religions, also in Christianity, there are terribly conservatives who don't shy away from violence to spread their beliefs and those who only adapt the essence of their religion while not taking everything literal. Eko Fresh is a highly intelligent and extremely tolerant and accepting person who just happens to be a Muslim. The song and video is an exposure of honor killings which are rarely talked about.
A mind-blowing science fiction music video directed by Shawn Bu, the director of the acclaimed short film "Darth Maul: Apprentice". While rappers/singers Taddl and Ardy may look a bit nerdy in real life (that's the whole point), their anime hair and cyber costumes are just right in the middle of a huge spaceship flying around the Jupiter. It looks fantastic, and is just a perfect visualisation of cyber hip hop, a counter movement that started with this very song.
Tic Tac Toe were among the first German hip hop artists who were successful in the country. That was in the 90s, and had little to do with the German hip hop that became famous later on when Bushido entered the game in the early 2000s. It was more poppy. Surprisingly, the trio already had a few songs about serious issues, for example this song about incestious child molestation. The music video of course does not visualize the story told in the lyrics, but rather the aftermaths: the group walks through an abandoned and untidy house, with some details hinting it may be the place where the molestation occured, and they all look very emotionally stressed. It's a minimalistic video but it does not fail to have much impact.
You know, only a big, popular and acclaimed rapper like Kollegah - in fact, probably only Kollegah - could make a video so obviously inspired by Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda movie "Triumph of the Will" and not even raise the slightest scandal. Being a Muslim, Kollegah surely isn't a Nazi in any way, and he knows how to use imagery. Even though he didn't direct it, it has Kollegah written all over it (the title of the album this song is from translates to "Emperor").
Well, despite its undeniably evil ideology, Riefenstahl's movie sure is powerful, and Kollegah posing as an emperor in front of giant banners with a swastika-like "K" on it, looking down on others, while being in a dystopian desert society in the style of "Mad Max" is no less powerful.
(For some unknown reasons a diss aimed at SpongeBozz has been partly replaced by neutral lyrics in the video. It is weird because out of the four bars two can still be heard)
The song is about Bushido's impact on German hip hop (he basically started it). Before him, the genre was tied to pop and more light hearted or simply outrageous, when he appeared making dark and sinister street rap including violence, drugs and migrant slang, it completely changed the genre's direction.
But that has nothing to do with the music video: it's a cool comic book look-a-like, with Tarantino and Rodriguez references and a lot of action. Me likey.
Another serious Eko Fresh video (a majority of his work is light hearted and even funny though). The video, whose black and white looks almost grey, tells several short sad episodes in the poor parts of Germany (which come closest to American ghettos, but most Gernan thug rappers have never been there - Eko is NOT a thug rapper). We see a beating, and someone being stabbed, later on we see a transgender boy getting in a fight with his father and jumping off a building.
Big props for Eko Fresh for releasing this video. German hip hop often has a homophobic stance, but Eko Fresh does not shy away from addressing their issue in a music video. One of the parts why I love his personality so much is how open minded he is towards everyone, and how he criticizes when he feels something isn't right.
This video has disturbed an American YouTuber who reacted to it, but I just love sinister things. It was the first video that was focused on SpongeBozz without the sponge costume, and it features drug trafficking, a crab-like devil scissoring off parts of a gory skeleton, Jewish symbols everywhere (including the jew star the Nazis used in their death camps on SpongeBozz's arm),... oh yeah, and costumed SpongeBozz having a cameo dancing Hava Nagila.
The American YouTuber commented on despite all of the Jewish symbols, it looks more like a satanic cult. I guess he has a point. But it's just so messed up I like it.
I can only describe both the video and the 2 minute short song as "the druggiest drug you've ever drugged". It's pure distortion, musically and visually. Isn't that beautiful?
Another sinister video - what a surprise!
The song is about Tic Tac Toe, who briefly disbanded in the late 90s, coming back, and again being every parent's nightmare (they are widely considered pop rap now and fairly tame, but in the 90s, before German hip hop became a hugely successful genre with dark and profane lyrics, their use of a handful of cursewords and talk about sex and drugs were scandalous).
The music video visualizes this as them being some gothic cult living in the underground, coming back to the surface. They also appear to be immortal, and police squads fire tons of bullets at them without any harm. In the end, a chainsaw is involved, but it doesn't get bloody as it would if the video was shot today (see "Kollegah - Fanpost 2" for more detail).