Top Ten Painfully Honest Descriptions of Great German Rappers

Kollegah is one of Germany's most acclaimed rappers, known for multisyllabic rhyming, doubletime skills, and the most clever wordplay on earth. He often portrays the stage persona of a pimp.

Now, he looks pretty cool and credible, but in the 2000s, that was not the case. He looked like a little white rich boy who desperately wanted to be thug (check the cover artwork for "Boss der Bosse"). Luckily, his rapping was so great that nobody paid attention to his looks, and he was instantly praised and taken seriously.

The man behind SpongeBozz is Sun Diego, a rapper who didn't have a good reputation and was not considered good. While his rapping itself was complemented, he was panned for his sung choruses, use of autotune, and feminine attitude, and was often made fun of.

After the negative reception, he created a secret identity: SpongeBozz (wearing a modified Spongebob suit). He improved very much, took part in the popular battle rap tournament JuliensBlogBattle, won the competition, and became one of Germany's most famous rappers of the 2010s and the archenemy of Kollegah, still as SpongeBozz. In 2017, he revealed himself to be Sun Diego.

Bushido brought German rap on the mainstream map in the early 2000s. A young man with a migration background, he rapped tales about the dark life in the ghetto. That was what many people wanted to hear back then. Before him, German rap was mainly pop rap and not remotely as successful.

While modern German rap owes everything to Bushido, he is also a product of his time. This guy is a multi-millionaire rapping about the hood, but with more polished production, better German skills, and fewer surprises. He is still extremely relevant, but he has to face that there are other rappers like Kollegah with much better lyrical skills and more originality.

Shindy's laid-back style is a nice and refreshing alternative to the dark thug rap that makes up the majority of Germany's rap scene. Obviously, many people thought so, as he is famous and since his debut, each of his albums has topped the charts. I am a fan myself.

But seriously, he would never win any rap competition because if he wasn't backed by cool, fun beats setting the laid-back mood, his unusually slow flow and delivery would sound pretty drowsy.

An extremely atmospheric horrorcore rapper who won the online battle rap tournament JuliensBlogBattle. Also, he wears a duck mask.

A German horrorcore rapper with clown makeup, Hollywood Hank has a style similar to Twiztid. ICP's reception in Germany couldn't be much better, and Hollywood Hank obviously has a similar taste.

Before Bushido made German hip hop mainstream with his gangsta rap, Kool Savas's mix of underground and pop rap was much praised, and he was considered one of the greatest rappers internationally by German critics. Laut.de even said he is better than 2Pac and Jay-Z in one review.

His flow, attitude, and feel were new, and German hip hop was still young and inexperienced when he came along with something so professional, fun, and rap-ish. He was highly influential and paved the way for rap artists since then.

But almost two decades have passed since then, and German rap has brought us more exciting and lyrically complex rappers. Rappers with immense wordplay, insane doubletime flows, multisyllabic rhymes, and more charisma.

Kool Savas can't keep up with that if you look at it honestly. But nostalgia will always get him praise for all of his albums, and many still consider him the "King of Rap." I guess they love that he is still old school and sounds just like he did back then.

Sido is the other guy next to Bushido who made German rap mainstream. Like Eminem's alter ego Slim Shady, he was outrageous, crass, crude, and the nightmare of every parent, but still humorous.

Then, as he got more and more famous, he broke out of this role more often, put down his trademark skull mask, and began rapping about more serious topics - and was successful. He completely abandoned his old style, collaborated with pop artists, and his music became soft, charming, and intelligent.

By 2016, he figured that he might have lost a lot of his former fans in the hip-hop crowd who once called him revolutionary. So he put on his mask and was crass again, but also continued to rap intelligently, probably not wanting to lose either fanbase.

As Marteria, his main project, he is an indie and conscious rapper, soft and poppy, who gets mainstream attention with his lyricism and laid-back attitude. He has had hit singles every radio listener knows.

As Marsimoto, his side project, he pitches his voice chipmunk style, raps surreally and wildly, has weird and experimental electronic beats, and openly consumes cannabis (probably while recording). While Marteria has solid reviews, Marsimoto is considered a mastermind by critics.