Top Ten Songs from Kollegah's & Farid Bang's "Jung Brutal Gutaussehend"

“Jung brutal gutaussehend” is the first collaboration album by German rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang, released in 2009. As of 2017, the album spawned two sequels in 2013 and 2017, respectively.

The album peaked at number 30 on the German charts and did not chart in Austria and Switzerland. This makes it by far the least successful in the series, the other two topping the charts in all three countries. This is due to the fact that neither of the rappers had their mainstream breakthrough until 2011. The second installment was the first number one position for each of them, and when the third volume arrived, both were nationwide megastars with numerous highly successful albums.

The album’s initial reception was mixed to negative. It was felt that the integration of Farid Bang’s style is a handicap for Kollegah, who at that time was already praised as one of the greatest rappers on the rise. Many felt he did not reach full potential, while Farid Bang could not keep up with Kollegah’s talent. The general consensus was that both rappers are better on their own solo albums. Many reviewers were also mixed on the choice of beats. However, due to the huge success of the sequels and the two artists’ later works, the album now has a cult following in the German hip hop community and is used synonymously with a great collaboration album. The album is often noted as one of the first German gangsta rap albums with a main focus on lyrical complexity, combining the aggressive of the usually more direct and simplistic street rap with the advanced level of language usually found in conscious rap (even the two rappers’ earlier albums already did that).

Musically, the album exclusively consists of battle rap. The tone is quite sinister and aggressive, and tries to outdo the listener with clever wordplay, multisyllabic rhyming and exaggerated bragging. While there is dissing of other artists on the album, it is not as frequent and excessive as on the sequels. The beats are a mix of the two artists’ styles around the time the album was released. While Farid Bang always used to rap over hard, sinister and blockbuster-ish orchestral beats as both of them do now, Kollegah typically prefered more laid back, electronic production back then. “Jung brutal gutaussehend” uses dark and aggressive, but not typically orchestral and over-produced music, having a generally more oldschool feeling. A variety of producers were responsible for the beats. The only featured artist is R&B singer Billy 13 who sings the chorus of the song “Butterfly”.

“Mitternacht” was released as the album’s only single and did not enter any charts.

The album was indexed in 2012 due to its aggressive violent content, meaning it can not be openly sold in stores or for download. This was also the reason why I didn’t get to listen to the album years after its release (I became a fan of Kollegah about two years after the album was indexed), but I was lucky enough to find a copy of it in December 2017. And hell yeah, this is one awesome record. All three of the JBG albums are awesome.

The Top Ten

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