Top Ten Songs from Cro's "Raop"
“Raop” is the 2012 debut album of German rapper, producer and singer Cro.The album topped the German and Austrian charts and was certified five times gold in Germany and platinum in Austria. The massive surprise success of “Raop” was very influential to the German hip hop scene and paved the way for rappers who don’t make gangsta rap (much like what Kanye West did in the US in 2007 with “Graduation”, Germany still preferred gangsta rap, that’s also why 50 Cent’s “Curtis” was much more successful over here). The album turned Cro into an A-list celebrity overnight and made a much wider audience not familiar with the genre interested in hip hop music.
The record received mostly positive critical reviews, complementing Cro’s refreshing and light-hearted attitude and the innovative poppy beats. It was felt that Cro perfectly reflects the modern zeitgeist and that the style he introduced to German rap music was a welcome alternative to the dark and sinister German hip hop landscape. “Raop” also made a certain catchiness, melody and mix of rapping and singing popularly and critically acceptable. The reception in the hip hop scene was however polarizing upon release.
On “Raop”, Cro interpolates indie pop, pop rock, synth pop and soul into hip hop music. On almost all songs, Cro raps the verses and sings the chorus. Unusual for a German hip hop album, there are no featured artists. Lyrically, Cro showcases a lust for life and a “live-for-the-moment” mentality. Quite a few songs deal with relationships, often in a humorous way, but avoid the typical clichés of love or breakup songs. The tone of the record is generally very carefree and positive. Unlike the pop rap that dominated the German hip hop scene of the 90s, Cro uses a much more modern flow and technique that works in a hip hop context, which fluently blends into poppy hooks.
Several singles were released off the album, three of which were very successful in Germany: “Easy” peaked at number two and was certified triple gold, “Du” also peaked at number two and was certified platinum, and “Einmal um die Welt” peaked at number eight but was also certified triple gold. The album’s deluxe edition, “Raop +5”, even spawned a chart topping song, “Whatever”, again receiving triple gold. All four songs received massive airplay. The other two singles, “King of Raop” and “Meine Zeit” were only minor successes.
It's mind blowing how Cro can turn this one line "King of Raop, Raop, Raop,..." into such am earworm. Also what a melodious and uplifting flow.
This song is noteworthy because the sampled "Easy" vocal (taken from Bobby Hebb's "Sunny") ends Cro's lyrics every four lines. For example when the lyrics say "Washington DC", Cro only raps "Washinton D-", and the "easy" ends the line.
I'll.also include the bonus tracks from the "+5" edition, because they are awesome and also part of the album. In case you like some of the audio samples and plan on getting the album, be careful to get the right edition.
The intro is a full regular song that just happens to be the opening of the album. I don't quite understand why rappers do that, that kind of makes the song look like "less" than the other tracks.
If you visited Germany or Austria in the early to mid 2010s, you will most likely know this song. The airplay it received is insane. It's also the least hip hop-ish song of the album.
