Slovo 21 (english language)

EDITORIAL

SLOVO #21

Editorial Hello, dear readers!

You are reading the 21th issue of the hip-hop magazine "Slovo". Despite the relatively long history of the magazine, dated back in 2008, it's the first issue published in English .

From the very beginning of its existence our magazine shed light on hip- hop around the world and different periods in the history of this culture.

Now we are trying to expand the geography of materials and, accordingly, readers. And we think that the release of the English-language version of the magazine will help us.

21 number is different from the previous ones in terms of that almost all the interviews comprised in it have been made in Europe this summer. I am very pleased to introduce to you interesting people from the Czech Republic, Germany and France, that each in their own way sees and actively develops hip-hop culture of their respective regions. I want to make a special emphasis on the scientific study of the hip-hop

culture. Previously we wrote about it, relying mainly on the publications, now from interviews with Anna Oravcova and Sina Nitzsche you can learn about the research of hip-hop culture, so to speak, first hand.

As presented in this issue of "Slovo" interviews a lot is said about the history of hip-hop in some European countries. And again, this is a look from inside, a look of people who actively participate and observe the hip-hop of their regions.

In the future we plan to publish not only hip-hop materials, but also other interesting cultural issues. So be ready for a number of experiments, which we hope will appeal to you. One thing remains unchanged – we will tell you about interesting events, people and their art.

Editor: Ðåäàêòîð: Nelson

Sincerely yours, Nelson

Translators: Lea Zasolova Nomadum Mantis

Authors: Nelson Marianna Chief

Thanks to Oksana Prokofieva, Anna Sorokoletova, Anastasia Lescheva

WWW.SLOVOMAG.COM e-mail: slovohiphop@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/pages/143482145739682 002

CONTENTS

SLOVO #21

KNOWLEDGE 004 Anna Oravcova 011 Sina Nitzsche

HIP-HOP MUSIC 017 Geroyche 022 Ammo Deus 027 iMaNiRaN 032 Murasame 037 So Muzyf

BREAKING 040 Mathieu 003

KNOWLEDGE

SLOVO #21

Anna Oravcova is sociologist, journalist and radio host. This interview is detailed insight of Czech hip-hop culture, his history, scientific and gender aspects.

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SLOVO #21 In my country people don't know much about Czech hiphop. Of course, I heard about legendary festival Hip Hop Kemp and about popular rappers Chaozz, Naše Vec, Gipsy.cz and several less well-known, whose albums I came across on the Internet.

Well what can be considered a founding myth of Czech hiphop or how it's now presented, the first rap song was recorded back in 1984 by a group called Manþele. The song was called "Jiþak", and it was inspired by Grandmaster Flash & Furious Five's "New York, New York". They lived in Prague's neighborhood called Jiþni Mesto, which are basically just apartment buildings. And they had a satellite antenna, on which they caught broadcasting from West Germany, where they heard the Grandmaster Flash song and did they own version. But I think that people were aware of this song when another group called Peneri stryèka Homeboye, now they go by "PSH", did a remake of this song in 1994, which brought the attention to the original song. But you write here about groups like Chaozz, Naše Vec, these are groups I grew up on back in 96-97. Chaozz was actually the first mainstream group. They were on popular chart shows that we used to watch. So Chaozz is the group that brought hip-hop even to the smallest village in Czech Republic and to Slovakia, it was the first really big group to break hip-hop to a wider audience. The front man of Chaozz, back in the day he went by the name Deph, now he calls himself Kato, he is the frontman of the group called Prago Union, which is really famous now and in my opinion he was always the best lyricist in Czech Republic, his metaphors and word play is just ridiculous. Then of course Naše Vec from Brno, some of the members of the group are still active From my point of view what was really important for Czech hip hop was the internet. There was this chat room called hip-hop where we all met and just discussed hip-hop and then we would meet and go to the concert, which were rare in the nineties. After 1989 people were finally able to travel they would go to Germany and the first rappers were actually the first graffiti artists. Then beside Chaozz a very important group is WWW, they also had the very first hiphop video with graffiti called "Noèni mura". They are still active as well, now they do more what one might call experimental hip-hop, more lyrical, experimental sound. It's not the "classic" hip-hop. There were so many other groups I cannot even name them all Moxa, Coltcha, and other local groups, back then the community was smaller and tighter I guess.

It's hard for me to say when hip-hop got so big but right now we have so called "mainstream", these pioneers are now still active, for example Vladimir from PSH, who is also an artist, he does comics, he does visual art plus he is a rapper, he just released a new album. We have also a large "underground" scene, people that just work on their music at home. There are few big labels that rule the hip-hop scene. There is "Big Boss" label and "Ty Nikdy" label, which has really good artists, DJs and producers. So these are like two major hiphop labels right now. I mean there are so much of it, there is like a new wave of hip-hop, like doing electro stuff. Those who still do old school beat and have the underground sound. And we have a horrorcore scene and just all these

little things here and there.

One of the really important events back in the early 2000 was "Hip-hop Foundation". It was started by Bbarak, they also had the first hip-hop magazine in Czech Republic.

"Hip-hop Foundation", was held once a month here in Prague and there were all the elements together. And so you had DJ battle, then you had graffiti battle, you had breakdance battle, beatboxers and there were always headliners, the current big groups. So that was the event that everybody just wanted to go to "Hip-hop Foundation". I don't think Bbarak is printed now but it's still a very important website. If you wanna know what is going on in Czech rap and as well abroad, you just check out the Bbarak.

They now organize "Hip-Hop Kemp" as well.

What do you think is special about Czech hip-hop?

First of all what is special about Czech hip-hop is the Czech language. There are people that also try to rap in English, but unless they are English it is not really viewed as authentic, because people don't understand them. So I think that Czech language is the basic. And also the fact that Czech hip-hop speaks to Czech people, the realities of life that people can relate to in Czech Republic. But there's still so much influence by American hip-hop.

Musically, is Czech hip-hop the original genre of world hip-hop music or do many producers copy main tendencies of American hip-hop? Who from Czech DJs and producers are forming popular trends in sound right now?

When it comes to the music and inspiration of producers and DJs, I think that it's hard not to be influenced by American hip-hop. And, of course, American hip-hop is like a melting pot of other genres, you have some R&B, you have jazz, and you have all these influences that American hip hop incorporates. Some of it will sound like American hip-hop whether it's a mainstream or whether it's an old school boombox style. I don't think there can be unique Czech hip hop sound unless it would be mixed with traditional folk Czech sound. I heard some of that, but I think it's hard not to follow American trends.

When it comes to producers that are influencing much of Czech hip-hop, then I have to mention DJ Wich, which is like the biggest producer in Czech Republic right now. His sound is really dope. He is doing stuff with the best Czech rappers. And I like DJ Fatte, from Ty Nikdy label. He is really talented too. But, of course, there are many others that may not be that famous.

As a rule, music scene is better developed in capitals of countries. Are there any centers of Czech hip-hop outside Prague?

Of course, Prague being the capital of the Czech Republic, it has what's viewed as the most hip-hop, but maybe it's because it's the capital. But there are definitely parts in the Czech Republic where they have their own style. You have hip-hop pretty much everywhere.

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SLOVO #21

There is a quite a large scene around Ostrava, around Brno, so each of the bigger cities have their own scene. You can recognize it by their dialect or their speech pattern. So you can hear it, that the person is probably not from Prague. But it's not just the capital. The capital just gets the most attention.

In ex-USSR countries Russian rappers makes popular tendencies. And many of them speak about their own style, that it does not look like American rap. As a consequence, they are not interested in hip hop history and philosophy. Does this problem take place in Czech?

The relationship between Czech hip-hop and the American is always gonna be a difficult one. Of course, nobody wants to be accused of copying American style. Everybody wants to maintain authenticity of their own style. I do find it a problem that not lot of people knows the history of hip-hop and the philosophy behind it. I think people are following trends or what they see on TV. I think it's a problem that people don't really speak English that much. I feel like sometimes people don't even care what the Americans are rapping about as long as the sound is good. I think it is important to know the history of hip-hop, because how can you know where you're going when you don't know where you've been. So for me it's important and I have a radio show, where I have a segment called Re-education. And every week I try to bring up some of the history just so people know where it came from, so they know that old school is not 2Pac, because I feel this new generation is not interested in the history, they just listen to Czech hip-hop only or there is the other case when people listen only to American hip-hop. But I definitely think it's important to teach the philosophy and history of hip-hop.

Czech rap, whose representatives use rap as means to speak about social problems?

That's an interesting issue. Right now in my dissertation project I focus on content analysis of rap lyrics and what I concluded so far is that basically Czech hip-hop could be characterized as the everyday struggle of average Czech men from lower to middle class. Like everybody is doing kinda well, they aren't terribly poor but they are not wealthy either. I think there is a segment right now coming up that is trying to present as the "socially conscious". They talk about politics, but I feel their main focus is on what's happening in the world and not really looking inside the country. When the rappers talk about politics, they usually limit themselves to the basic remarks like "corruption is everywhere", or that it is hard to find and employment. We all know that and now what? I don't really see the agency of trying to change something about it. I feel that even people that try to call themselves as "conscious" don't really know the history of hip-hop, so that's going back to the previous question; you have to learn about that genre. So basically most of the rappers talk about the everyday life of Czech men.

Tell us, please, about breaking and graffiti in Czech Republic.

I cannot really talk about that much, because I'm interested mostly in rap music and MCs. There is big graffiti scene, lots of crews, graffiti is everywhere. There is always a graffiti jam somewhere, legal walls, but I do not follow graffiti that much. Big shout out to Sany, who is doing great things for women in graffiti, hopefully her documentary "Girl Power Movie" on female writers from all over Europe and beyond will be out soon.

How social aspect is presented in Czech hip-hop? Can you say that Czech scene have separate segment of

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SLOVO #21 And breakdance?

Well, it's interesting that when you say that you are interested in hip-hop the majority of the people that are not involved in the subculture think that you are talking about the hip-hop dance specifically. But they do not necessarily mean breakdance, what they usually think of are these routines, the mainstream hip-hop video choreography kind of "street dance". So the art of breakdance is still alive, there are different crews, but I don't really follow them either, so I don't have much to say about that. I remember back in the late nineties it was more connected and there were breakers at the metro stops in the center you know practicing and battling. But I don't see them anymore, but there definitely are great crews like Pentifull.

Bboys and bgirls always were and are keepers of hip-hop traditions. Despite the collapse of the unity of elements of hip-hop, observed today, when rappers or writers often make their art without support of representatives of other hip-hop elements, bboys still preserve the spirit of hip-hop. Does such a collapse of the unity of elements of hip-hop take place in Czech? Or you have united scene or different communities that represent all elements of hiphop?

Yes, I feel there is a disconnection. As I said earlier, events like the “Hip-hop foundation� had all the elements together.

Right now when you go to the event you don't see that much.

There are events that try to combine it, have a little breakdance showcase, a little beatbox showcase and stuff like that. As DJ Ba2s noted in one of our conversations, right now people don't go to experience hip-hop as a culture with the elements, they just go to see the famous name that is currently popular. I definitely feel there is disconnection between these elements and unless the promoter really tries to get these elements together, organically I don't see that happening. Maybe there is a crew out there that pursues all the elements of hip-hop and I just might not know about it.

And why? It's problem in people, which they don't interesting in philosophy and history of hip-hop or it's a problem in industry of hip-hop?

I don't know. Maybe it's because... you don't really have to be interested in the culture when you are going to see a famous rapper. Maybe you are just not interested in breakdance or graffiti. People have opportunities to go look for what they like, but some of them might be too lazy to go and look and just accept what is being catered to them.

When it comes to music industry, the situation in the Czech Republic is different. These local hip-hop labels they are not the huge powerful record companies like in the US where they are pushing records and may "own" the artists and dictate them what they can or cannot do. Every hip-hop label in the Czech Republic is owned and managed by the rappers and the people involved in it. So there is no corporate pressure like you have to go this way, you have to rap about this. They are their own bosses. I think it is a very complex issue that cannot be resolved with one thing or pointing out one reason of why it is the way it is.

Tell, please, how scientists started to study hip-hop.

What foreign authors and articles affected on researches of hip-hop in Czech?

The study of hip-hop on academic level is fairly new. I can only speak for myself. I was studying at the Faculty of Humanities, and my professor told me that I should write my bachelor thesis on something what I really love. Because in the process of writing you will come to a point where you will be annoyed by the topic, so it is better to write about something you are really into. So I was like "Hey, I love hiphop. I want write about hip-hop". And since I was a Gender Studies major, I was like I wanna write about women in hiphop. And I thought that the professor would tell me no but he said: "go ahead" and that's pretty much how I started.

By now there are couple of bachelor and master theses on Czech hip-hop. Some were written at the faculty of American studies, but whether you study literature or sociology there are issues that relate to hip-hop. I really wish there would be more people interested in the topic and involved in the study of hip-hop. I was the first to be accepted for a doctoral program at the Department of Sociology with this kind of project focusing on hip-hop. And I still feel like something different, something rare. In the academia there is a hierarchy of "important" topics as well, so every time I am supposed to give a presentation, I tend to be introduced like "so now Anna is going to talk about that hip-hop". It is related to the perception of hip-hop as an academic field on its own, that it really is meaningful and "worth" studying. Which is something new in the Czech Republic, for example my faculty was quite surprised to hear that there are purely hip-hop oriented conferences.

When it comes to the books and authors that influenced me, then of course Tricia Rose "Black Noise" is I guess the mostly cited book. Then Jeff Chang "Can't stop Won't stop".

I could name a whole bunch of others, now with the internet and online libraries you can get anything so you can just go online search for books written on hip-hop. It's quite easy to get the literature. But Tricia Rose is my favorite author and of course "That's The Joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader" edited by Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal is the basic book. And bunch of other important authors such as Bakari Kitwana, Michael Eric Dyson, MK Asante just to name a few.

You study the status of women in hip-hop, i.e. study hiphop culture from the point of gender studies. Tell us, please, how urgent is gender issue for young Czech women?

I always kept asking myself where are the other girls because I always used to hang out in crews that were mostly male. Hip-hop is so much dominated by men; most of the MCs are men, there are just few female MCs. So that was my first point like where are all the other women, why they are not involved in this culture. Because there is nothing that should suggest that women should or could not be involved in hip-hop to the degree that men are. For example you have female poets, why don't we have female MCs? My first research for my bachelor thesis was on gender stereotypes, and on master level I focused on Czech female MCs. I did interviews with them and I did content analysis of their songs.

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SLOVO #21 I think that because there is such a male presence most women feel that it's not for them, that it is not something they could be involved in. So I am trying to show them that of course, you can be involved in hip-hop, who says you cannot rap? If you like writing poems then you can rap, u know, it is about practice. I am trying to encourage more women to be actively involved in hip-hop just because I feel there needs to be that balance, cause it's really one point of view coming across and that is the male point of view. So that's basically why I think it's important. And I think that women are as creative as men so why not be involved.

Tell, please, about female MCs. There are not many. But one really good female MC is Lara 303. I've known her for about ten years now. I knew her when she started raping at 16 years old. She had the first female MC CD, that she released called "Revolution", so u should check that out. Then there is young MC, she is really great at freestyler called Sharkass. She was also finalist in the Czechoslovakia talent show. Some of the MCs that I talked about are not rapping anymore. But my favorite duo is BioMasha and MC Taktika. Taktika used to hang out with a crew called S.C.U.R, the South City Underground Rappers.

She was the only girl in the collective. Later she joined BioMasha, who is also a slam poet. They are really dope they have this really sarcastic and feminist approach and critique of the Czech society. And then there are other women like Fakne or Potme, who can be labeled as anarcho-feminist hip-hop. So these are some of the more famous female artists.

What are the themes they are rapping about?

The topics female MCs are not really that different from what the male MCs are rapping about. I like the lyrics of Taktika and BioMasha because in some of the lyrics they talk about the gender stereotypes, about the pressure to

always look good, have the prefect make-up and be "feminine". My favorite song form Lara303 is one about the complicated relationship she had with her mother, there is this honesty and introspection about this song, which I feel can help other girls who can relate to it. But overall there is not that big of a difference.

What are the features of gender stereotypes in hip-hop culture?

Gender stereotypes in hip-hop are basically the same as gender stereotypes in other music genres or cultures dominated by men in general. When I did my master thesis I took some of the main arguments from cultural studies theorists Angela McRobbie and Sarah Thornton. Some of the basic stereotypes are for example thinking about every woman as a potential mother. So there is this kind of presumption that these women are not gonna give their all to the subcultural life because at some point there are gonna be mothers and gonna take care of their kids. Then there is the presumption that women don't want to spend money on music or go to concerts, because they want to buy clothes and make up. Another stereotype is that women are not involved in music, but want to get involved with "famous" men, so they are more like girlfriends, but not really the women that are doing something really important for the culture. That is very interesting because usually behind every success for rapper there is a woman that pushed him there.

I know many great women that are doing radio shows, women that have large record collection and knowledge about the culture. I know women that know more about hiphop than some of the men. They are just not showing it off, I guess. They are not pushing it so much. And sometimes women tend to invest their time into making the man a star. I know women that are in the executive roles and actually have the power as organizers or as a label executives and stuff like that.

Usually when I do my interviews with the male MCs I always ask them why they think that most of the rappers are men. I don't know if I should be surprised by the fact that they don't even think about it. They don't even stop to think like "Oh, wait right why, where are female MCs?". They can name some of the American female MCs and sometimes couple of Czech ones. This one rapper told me: "What do you expect women to rap about? All they do is hang out with other girls" like they have nothing to talk about, like they were not interested in "serious" stuff, like politics for example. All these mechanisms and also the bonds between men are much stronger than between women. Basically if you are into hip-hop and you have friends that are into hiphop and you are a man, they don't really question your knowledge. But from my own experience every time I said that I am into hip-hop I always had to go through hours and hours of quizzes: "Do you know this song?" - "Yes, I know this song". "Do you know that song" - "Yes, I know that one too". "Who produces that?" - "Well, I know that too". I had to go through this every time just to prove that I know stuff.

And maybe I am wrong, but I thing that something that doesn't happen that often between men. I feel like their knowledge is implied.

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SLOVO #21 How do you think can Hip-hop be a means for building gender equality or does it have its own discriminatory stereotypes?

I think there is a potential in hip-hop to help build gender equality. I don't think Czech hip-hop is necessarily there yet, because when I am looking into the content of most of these lyrics, the portrayal of women fits in to what the American studies call the saint/ho dichotomy. Either you are the perfect girlfriend or you are the promiscuous cheap type of girl. And there is no between. One way or another the women is always objectified – a trophy, a cheerleader, a groupie. There is no positive image of women, independent women, what does it mean, how to be independent or stuff like that. And all the gender stereotypes what I talked about I think that Czech hiphop has a long way to go to be the kind of voice to be like yes women can be equal you know, we do believe they are worth more than being a cook and cleaning machine and devoted mother and wife. Even with the socially conscious hip-hop I find lyrics that are really offensive to women. Like all they care about is makeup and purses. Czech Republic is really a patriarchal society and feminism is still viewed as something like a curse. Everybody has this presumption that feminists are some kind male bashing individuals, angry lesbians that just didn't get laid right. Until that changes I don't think that hip-hop can lead to gender equality, because hip-hop being a subculture mirrors the attitudes of the majority.

Tell, please, about your studies. What articles have you published and where we can read them?

I wrote the bachelor thesis about gender stereotypes in Czech hip-hop. Then my master thesis was about the position of female MCs in Czech hip-hop subculture. These I wrote in Czech and they are available only in the Charles University database.

Then I was a part of a project under the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Czech Republic. We had a research team of five scholars focusing on current Czech music subcultures. I wrote the chapter on hip-hop. The others chapters were on punk, on techno sound system and skinhead subculture. The book is called "Revolta stylem" ("Revolt through style") and is available only in Czech. It was released in 2011. I also wrote a chapter in English on the construction of authenticity in the Czech rap music, which is currently my PhD research topic and that will be released in a book called "Hip-hop in Europe" coedited by Sina Nitzsche, hopefully that will be released soon. And I am working on another chapter in English for a book project called "Hip Hop from

the East of Europe". I also do interviews and articles for hip hop websites in Czech and couple of them are in English available at the World Hip Hop Market website.

In ex-USSR countries students, who want study subcultures and hip-hop in particular, have difficulties, because many university teachers has stereotype, according to which subcultures are just games for teens. People don't consider subcultures as components of human culture. Were there the same stereotypes in Czech? Are they broken now?

The studies of youth subcultures don't have the same status as other so called important issues like politic or social issues and stuff like that. So it's not impossible, but it is true that music subcultures are viewed as a youth thing. That somehow it's like a passing stage between childhood and adolescence, until you become the responsible citizen that pays the bills and takes care of the family. And yes, some of the people stop being part of subculture, when the reality of having to take care of yourself hits them. Czech hip-hop is not on that level that you can make really big money off of it right now. So yes, it is still viewed as a youth thing, but also in the Czech Republic there people that started hip-hop and are still active and are over 35. I think it breaks the kind of stereotypes that one is going to be involved in subculture only for a certain period of time. And for example producers can find work in a studio. It doesn't have to be hip-hop oriented, but it still is a means to support themselves so they can continue to be involved with the subculture. I know some of the rappers work in advertising agencies as copywriters, so they use their word play and language skills. So for MCs and people that are actively involved in the subculture it is not just a way to spend your spare time, its I a port of their identity, it defines them, so I think that is something that should be studied. Especially hip hop being one of the most popular music genres influencing so many young people, it should be taken seriously by the academia. I think that hip-hop as a worldwide phenomenon has proven that it is not just a passing fad, after all it has been here for couple of decades now. What I feel is lacking in the Czech Republic is the network of hip-hop scholars. I hear that when the students are interested in the topic their mentors discourage them claiming that there is not enough material and nobody who could really help them develop their topics. Which is not true and I hope it will change soon.

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SLOVO #21 Tell, please, about media and particular persons, representing hip-hop as a culture, not a set of albums and parties.

I always think about this notion of "I am hip-hop" and "I represent a culture" and my thing about it is - can Czech hip-hop really be a culture in the same way that American hip-hop culture is? Because the history of American hiphop culture is tied to specific socio-economic and political conditions that we did not grew up in and possibly cannot even understand, so hip-hop culture in that sense will mean something different in the case of the Czech Republic.

But if we are talking about representing hip-hop culture as the combination of elements and education and knowledge of the history and people that are active in this sense, then I have to mention MaryC who is hosting Kruton radio show on Radio Wave and focuses on the new, alternative and progressive sounds in hip-hop. There are couple of websites including Cream.cz or the Bbarak I mentioned earlier. What I am doing in my radio show Street Cypher on Radio Spin 96,2 is that I play a little bit of really old school hip-hop, include the history and I always play female emcees and local underground artists. This radio show is now in its third year and was started by Jaro Cossiga, one of

the first beatboxers in the Czech Republic and a frontman of BeatBurgerBand and together we also do hip-hop workshops for elementary schools, high schools and foster homes, where in the first hour I tell the kids about the history of hip hop and in the second hour Cossiga teaches them how to beatbox. So that is really popular, they get to try all those sounds and hopefully they remember something about Zulu Nation as well. And there are many others working with the community, offering different workshops, like MC Metodej and Dozer who work with Roma youth, Foggy Fogosh does different graffiti workshops, Lucie Matta Hari is supporting underground artists and running our Freestyle Mondays Praha event which was inspired by the original Freestyle Mondays open mic with a live band in New York City. So basically anyone can come in and jam with the live band every third Monday in a month. These are basically people that I work with, and I cannot forget activist Ivanka Mariposa Ăˆonkova doing all the leg work with the Roma community in the Czech Republic. When it comes to the global hip-hop outside of USA then I strongly recommend the World Hip Hop Market website. Great articles, interviews, video feeds by artist you may have never heard of before and you definitely should.

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SLOVO #21

Sina Nitzsche received her PhD in American Studies. Her research interests are urban culture, literature, photography, cinema and, of course, hip-hop. Sina told our magazine about German hip-hop and the future of scientific hip-hop knowledge.

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SLOVO #21 The German rap scene is one of the biggest in Europe.

Many popular rappers from Germany are well-known around Europe. How you evaluate contemporary German hip-hop?

The history of German rap music and hip-hop culture is very dynamic. It established itself with graffiti and breakdance in the 1980s. Rap music became very popular in the 1990s with crews like Die Fantastischen Vier, Torch or Advanced Chemistry. Some critics argue that the late 1990s marked the "Golden Age" of German hip-hop with the Kolchose collective in Stuttgart (Freundeskreis, Afrob, Massive T ne) or crews such as F nf Sterne Deluxe, Fettes Brot, Absolute Beginner in Hamburg. In the early 2000s, gangsta rap entered the German rap music stage with crews and artists around the record label Aggro Berlin (Bushido, Sido, Fler).

After the "Golden Age" in the late 1990s, hip-hop retreated largely to the underground.

Currently, German hip-hop is moving into a new phase.

Established artists such as Max Herre or Samy Deluxe from the "Golden Age" are coming back to hip-hop enriching it with new and long-standing music genres, such as folk, blues, soul, dubstep, or electronica. The band Kraftklub, for instance, mixes punk, indie, and electronica while their front man Felix Kummer raps his lyrics. A new generation of artists has emerged such as Casper, Die Orsons, or Cro who accentuate all new facets of rap music. Hip-hop in Germany has entered a new and exciting phase with new artists while simultaneously being aware of the culture's roots and values.

In the early years of German rap two opposite styles formed – social rap with conscious lyrics was represented by Advanced Chemistry and Absolute Beginner, and party-rap of Die Fantastischen Vier, Fettes Brot and Der Tobi und das Bo. How are these styles developing now and who represents them today?

German rap has a long tradition of socially conscious music.

This tradition, for instance, is still very vivid here in the Ruhr Area in the Western part of Germany. Groups like R.A.G., Creutzfeld & Jacob, or Too Strong rap about the difficult situation in the Ruhr Area in the 1990s. The region used to be one of the industrial centers in continental Europe and suffered from deindustrialization, a high rate of unemployment, and shrinking cities since the 1950s. The rappers thematized those problems but also highlighted their love for the region – which is after all their home. Younger crews such as Jokaz and Schrottboykott also rap about their situation, but they display much more pride in the region as their predecessors.

Party rap keeps coming back as a response against the dominance of gangsta rap in the 2000. The best example is the rapper Cro who is known for his rather light-hearted style or Die Orsons with their ironic rhymes and samples.

However, I want to emphasize that the strict distinction between "party" and "message" rap is problematic.

Oftentimes, fans and academics think that party or fun rap cannot be socially conscious. I disagree because humorous styles can be equally disruptive of the social order. They do so by other modes such as irony, parody, or subversion.

Those modes may function differently and generate different reactions among the audience, but they similarly

reveal unequal power relations and oppression in a society.

Gangsta rap or party rap, they are all connected in the greater idea of the hip-hop nation which serves to empower people by giving them a voice – and a mic.

In the middle of 1990th in Germany battle rap become a separate style. And in the last decade representatives of this style, particularly Aggro Berlin, became rap stars.

Battle rap was estimated differently in the hip-hop community. How greatly distinct are borders between mainstream and independent hip-hop with conscious lyrics?

The distinction between mainstream and underground is indeed a very complicated topic in hip-hop culture – not just in the US, Germany or Belarus, but probably everywhere in the world. Similar to the party and conscious distinction, I see both underground and mainstream interrelated with each other. There are no clear boundaries between the two. There are underground MCs and DJs who at some point become extremely popular. There are by-now iconic rappers who started out selling their music out of cars such as Jay-Z. Their success story and pioneering rhymes inspire new underground artists. I see the relation between mainstream and underground as a continuum rather than a clear-cut distinction.

Ultimately, this distinction tells us more about the people who create them rather than the culture itself. This distinction reveals much about individual and collective tastes as well as the degree of knowledge of the hip-hop culture.

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SLOVO #21 "Mainstream" is often associated with commercialization, party genres, and little socially conscious approach, whereas underground is often connected with an anticommercial attitude and a rather political nature. This distinction is finally obscured by the very fact that as soon as a rapper uses a mic, a DJ turns on his/her turntable, a breakdancer dances on a mat or a graffiti artist popping the lit of a can, they are all part of a society's material economy and commercial culture.

What do you think of academic research of hip-hop in Europe generally and in Germany in particular? When did the research start and what are its main themes?

Studying hip-hop is a very recent phenomenon – just like hip-hop culture itself. Hip-hop culture has only existed for 40 years. One of the first scholars who studied American hip-hop culture already in 1984 is the British author David Toop. Research on hip-hop in Germany started in the late 1990s and early 2000s with scholars such as musicologist Dietmar Elflein or romance studies scholar Eva Kimminich. Elflein examined how American rap resonated especially with Turkish Germans and their situation in Germany. Kimminich studied French rap and its interrelationships with Africa (Senegal, Mali, etc.).

Much of the research is concerned with how hip-hop traveled to Europe and how it is mixed with local cultures and traditions. Scholars especially study how marginalized youth in different parts of Europe (and also on a global scale) use hip-hop to speak out against discrimination, oppression, racism, and neglect. Topics such as masculinity, femininity, ethnicity, genre, authenticity, and politics are also frequently discussed.

Researchers look at the lyrics, the music videos, the music, fashion as well as the use of media. There's little research on specific musical aspects, such as the flow, the beat, rapping, or the sound of hip-hop.

I like how hip-hop research in the US and in Europe is interdisciplinary. Scholars from many different fields come together and discuss the culture. Hip-hop research in Germany, for instance, is conducted in the fields of sociology, linguistics, and cultural studies to name but a few. Surprisingly, not much research is done at musicology departments which highlights the fact that musicology is a rather conservative and sometimes even elite academic field.

In the past years, I have done several projects regarding hip-hop. In 2010, I organized a large hip-hop conference "HipHop on the Ruhr".

It was the first conference that specifically examined the hip-hop culture of the Ruhr Area. I mentioned before that hip-hop here is very much influenced by the industrial culture and history. We not only talked about hip-hop from an academic point of view, but we integrated artists and heads as well. We invited artists to a panel discussion to talk with them about their understanding of hip-hop. We also organized workshops on graffiti, hip-hop dance and philosophy, breaking, beatboxing and DJing for students and kids which were taught by artists and heads. The conference generated much attention. About 450 people attended our two-day conference. TV and radio stations

came and interviewed artists and scholars. It was a very successful project.

I have taught a seminar "'It's all about the Benjamins': Economies of Hip-Hop" at my university, the TU Dortmund.

Teaching hip-hop is very rewarding because the students are so enthusiastic about it. They learn as much from me as I learn from them.

I am the co-editor of a collection of essays entitled "Hip-Hop in Europe: Cultural Identities and Transnational Flows" which will be published in fall 2013. My dissertation which deals with representations of the Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s contains one chapter on hip-hop culture. I also published an article on the cult film "Wild Style", which functioned as an important inspiration for many young people across Europe.

I think there's an interest for studying hip-hop in Germany.

PhD work is done, seminars are held on special aspects of hip-hop, but hip-hop still has difficulties to be accepted in academia. There are rather conservative scholars who question the legitimacy of hip-hop at the university. I think we're on the good way, but we need more research done on contexts such as Russia, Belarus or the Ukraine (or other former Soviet satellite states). So please, go out and write your story! Each One Teach One. We need these stories; we need to preserve the history of how hip-hop traveled to and within Europe.

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SLOVO #21 What are main problems of hip-hop research?

There are three main problems. First, the acceptance of hiphop could be improved at institutes of higher education.

Some scholars not familiar with hip-hop studies see it as a street culture and negate the possibility that hip-hop scholars can write smart and clever essays about hip-hop. Of course, there are conferences and seminars, workshops at youth centers, but currently there is no "department of hip-hop studies" at a German university. One of the first programs that deal with hip-hop is located at the University of Arizona (US). Students can pursue a minor in Africana Studies with a concentration in hip-hop cultures. I believe that the institutionalization of hip-hop as a field will progress and someday hip-hop departments will appear similar to jazz departments which were created in the 1960s and 1970s.

Second, the question of how much practice should hip-hop research contain is often debated. Some authors in our "HipHop in Europe" collection mention that studying hip-hop should not only be a scientific research but it should also involve the practice, the doing of hip-hop. That is why some people call increasingly for ethnographic approaches where researchers become part of the culture for a limited amount of time. I somewhat disagree with those claims because this an essentializing argument. Put the other way: Does it mean that we should stop archeological research or research on Shakespeare because researchers are not part of the respective ancient or literary cultures of that time?

A third problem concerns the African American roots of hiphop. It is a fact that hip-hop developed out of African American oral traditions as well as from the African Caribbean diaspora who lived in the Bronx in the 1970s.

Some researchers emphasize and demand this African American presence as the defining element of hip-hop culture. However, other ethnicities had also a great impact on the development of hip-hop, such as the Puerto Rican graffiti writers or Latino bboys. When hip-hop travelled to Europe, it resonated with many young people who felt marginalized in their own ways. They came from immigrant families (Turkish German, Afro German, French African, Black British), but hip-hop also speaks to White liberal/leftist middle-class teens and twens, at least in Germany. So the race question gets even more complicated in those contexts.

number of important details. Have you faced that problem when you read scholarly articles about hip-hop?

That's a very interesting question which I have asked myself when I started studying hip-hop: Can I really study a culture if I don't have skills and tools of a DJ or MC, for example?

How can I draw conclusions from this? As I mentioned before, as a researcher in American Cultural Studies I do have my own skills and tools to examine hip-hop culture. I certainly need to know about its history, about its various art forms, but my tools are cultural theories or terms/concepts that help me to analyze the audio-/visual aspects of tracks, music videos, films, or what kinds of stories artists tell their fans on Facebook, in their lyrics or during interviews. Of course, you need the understanding of the culture and its mechanisms but I doubt whether someone who is a good DJ or MC can automatically become a good scholar just because he or she has the knowledge of the culture. Ultimately, as a scholar I can point to the culture and show that it is a highly interesting phenomenon that needs further attention.

I repeatedly heard the opinion, that researchers in the humanities and especially of subcultures have not benefit for real life. What you say in reply to this opinion?

Of course studying hip-hop has great benefit for the reality outside the university. First of all, we learn so much about youth, media, and our time. We understand better how young people connect to each other across borders and continents.

Studying hip-hop, we learn a lot about the various struggles of marginalized people all around the world such as African Americans and Latinos in the US, Turkish immigrants in Germany or African immigrants in France. We learn how they use hip-hop to speak out against discrimination, racism, and xenophobia. We learn about the use of media and technology, for instance hip-hop re-purposed the turntable in order not only to listen to the record, but to use it as an instrument. We learn much about how young people deal with crisis situations. Much of the hip-hop that I encountered takes place in times of crisis, e.g. the urban crisis in the Bronx of the 1970s, or the structural change in the Ruhr Area in the 1980s and 1990s. The youth sought of new ways of dealing with those crises and became pioneers of their own.

How many representatives of hip-hop are among scientists, who study this culture?

Studying hip-hop is a great activity because there are researchers who are also part of hip-hop culture. There are quite a few activists such as DJs, MCs, graffiti writers, and breakdancers, who were or are still active in their elements and at the same time write about hip-hop culture. In our collection "Hip-Hop in Europe", for instance, those are Haji Mike in Nicosia, Cyprus, a DJ turned into scholar, Matth us Ochmann, an MC and DJ who is a student of Philosophy and American Cultural Studies or Anna Oravcova from Prague, Czech Republic, who hosts a radio show. This is something that I really like about studying hip-hop – that we have what I would call "dual scholars".

Scholars, who observe subcultures outside and who are not representatives of these subcultures, very often miss a

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SLOVO #21 Second, I train future teachers. There are many young people listening to hip-hop, and it resonates with them when we talk about contemporary culture. Future teachers should know the significance of this culture because that way they can connect to their students. They can use hip-hop in order to teach kids and young adults about their society, their responsibilities, and teach them how to speak out against injustices of their socio-cultural environment. It is also important to pass on the knowledge on to the next generation that we found out in our studies. Teachers and youth/hood workers will eventually keep the kids off the street by engaging them in battles without weapons, show them other perspectives, and ideally empower them to speak up against unequal power relations by writing and performing their own rhymes. I would go as far as to say that no other cultural form and subject than hip-hop is so strongly connected with the reality of our students and the kids in our city. We should take this seriously and make use of that.

How does hip-hop influence the life and outlook of young people today? Maybe this is a fundamental influence, which makes serious changes in social stereotypes of new generation?

For young people hip-hop is a means for speaking up, they see that through hip-hop they can address issues of, for instance, poverty, neglect, unequal relationships in a society by means of grabbing a mike and speaking, or DJing, dancing, graffiti. Through hip-hop they can express themselves and their own situation. That's the biggest contribution that hip-hop made to the youth.

Plus, we should not forget that hip-hop is a party culture, a way of celebrating together, dancing, having a good time.

And often people gather in places where they come from different cultural, ethnic, gender, and class backgrounds.

By listening to hip-hop they come together and enter into dialogue with each other.

Tell us, please, about your research. What are the main topics and why do you consider them important?

My research concerning hip-hop is in three fields. First of all, I am the editor of a volume which is entitled "Hip-Hop in Europe: Cultural Identities and Transnational Flows".

This will be the first publication when authors and artists from many different contexts in Europe gather to discuss hip-hop in their respective fields. We invited 21 authors from countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Rumania, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Cyprus, France, the UK, Germany, and Portugal to discuss how hip-hop travelled to their countries, how it developed there, and how the young people use hip-hop as means to engage in their respective political and social issues. In this book we approached hip-hop from transnational angle; basically, we assumed that hip-hop transcends nation state boundaries or even the Iron Curtain during the Cold War and that it then becomes a hybrid form which features both elements from its American origins and local elements. This attempt will be the first one to examine

hip-hop in Europe and to establish European perspective in the study of hip-hop culture.

The second project that I work on is my dissertation. It deals with the question of how the Bronx borough is represented in the late 1970s and early 1980s in American popular literature and culture. I found out that hip-hop constitutes of the most creative and innovative ways of engaging in the decline by working with the devastation that was going on and creating something new out of it.

And we all know that it was a very successful strategy to deal with the economic crisis as hip-hop today is a global phenomenon.

The third project I'm currently working on that deals with hip-hop is a paper or article that addresses hip-hop in the Ruhr Area specifically. I'm very much interested in how the hip-hop artists here use the culture to talk about the problems of structural change and the importance of the industrial heritage of this region, which metaphors they use, how they use the deindustrialized landscape in their album covers and art work, for instance. The industrial heritage is a large part of their and the region's identity.

Are there articles about hip-hop research published in scientific journals in Germany? Are there any magazines devoted to these issues?

Unfortunately, there's no journal on hip-hop studies in Germany or Europe as far as I know, but I hope that this will someday be the case. Hip-hop research is often published in books or in journals of the respective disciplines. In the US, "The Journal of Hip-Hop Studies" was founded in 2012, but has not published its first issue yet.

Europe has many conferences in the sphere of hip-hop studies. Tell me, please, about the most important of them. Maybe Europe has conferences held regularly?

There are occasional but no regular or annual conferences on hip-hop studies. Again, this is a young field in Germany. There are still a lot of possibilities to establish and expand this field.

The next conference I will attend in September 2013 is entitled "Hip-Hop as Political and Social Empowerment".

It is funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung, the foundation associated with VW and Audi cars. They acknowledge the importance of hip-hop scholarship and see it as a means to present themselves as an institution that supports the youth. I will be talking about hip-hop in the Ruhr Area and how the young people use it to engage in their industrial past.

The "Hip-Hop on the Ruhr" conference which we organized 3 years ago in the framework of the European Capital of Culture was founded by the Heinrich Boll Stiftung, a progressive foundation closely connected to the Green Party of Germany. They were very excited about our project and the amount of people who showed up.

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What European universities may be called centers of hip-hop researches?

I am not sure if I can speak for Europe as a whole. Research on hip-hop is very diverse and unevenly distributed around Europe. I would rather shout out some scholars, who have engaged in studying hip-hop in Germany: Eva Kimminich, Heike-Raphael Hernandez, Leonard Schmieding, or my colleague Oliver Kautny in Wuppertal who organized the so-called "Hip-Hop Academy" three years in a row.

In the United States, there is the highly acclaimed Hiphop Archive and Research Institute at Harvard University. It's a wonderful place because you have a lot of books, materials, databases, as well as turntables, memorabilia, sneakers, and records. It is a meeting place for scholars and artists. The hip-hop archive has also an online database where you can search hip-hop texts in the broadest sense. This year, they established the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowship, which is named after the critically acclaimed American rapper NAS, to support outstanding hip-hop research.

The original style in German rap from middle of 1990s is Turkish rap. Groups as Karakan and Cartel created basis of this style. But if Karakan is Mcing about social aspects of immigrant life, Cartel became battle rap. Are today questions about immigration and cultural relations between the Germans and immigrants reflected by German hip-hop?

There is a significant tradition of hip-hop performed by immigrants to Germany, first or second generation. These traditions continue to grow and there are many crossovers,

for instance. In the Ruhr Area there is Snagga and Pillath who address their situation as immigrants by way of gangsta rap. The cultural influence of immigrants in Germany is significant as they continue to address their issues of being called foreigners, their identity between the culture of their parents and growing up German.

Over the years, hip-hop by immigrants has undergone a process of ethnicization, as Oliver Kautny points out in his article of our "Hip-Hop in Europe" collection. By process of ethnicization, he means that at first, the rappers rapped about their situation detached from their ethnic identity. Later the record labels 're-packaged' the artists by moving them into the "ethnic corner", thus dividing the market into a German segment and an ethnic immigrant segment.

One of the recent controversies about German immigrant rappers is Tunisian German and Berlin-based rapper Bushido, who was affiliated with the Aggro Berlin label in the early 2000s. He is known for his highly controversial lyrics and performances which show that hip-hop culture can also promote misogyny, homophobia, sexism, and antiSemitism. Recently he released the song "Stress ohne Grund" which can be translated as "Getting in Trouble without Reason". In it he attacked the Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, and uttered a death threat to the Claudia Roth of the Green Party. Not surprisingly, the release provoked a severe media attention and Wowereit sued Bushido right after that. I interpreted Bushido's aggressive performance part of the conventions of the gangsta rap genre and as a very clever marketing strategy to promote his latest album.

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Geroyche is DJ and producer, who works with experimental electronic music, and a diverse range of genres including dubstep, trap, juke and house. Geroyche loves hip-hop and has been listening to this genre for many years. He told us about new tendencies of mixing hip-hop and electronic music in contemporary DJing.

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SLOVO #21 Tell, please, about yourself and your music.

My name is Tam s. My DJ and producer name is Geroyche.

And I am a dubstep, bass and experimental music DJ from East Germany from Chemnitz and I recently moved to Dortmund in West Germany. And I've been Djing since, well that depends on how you count it. I started Djing with tapes in 1991 and I did DJ until 1993 and I didn't DJ for several years and I got back to DJing around 2000.

You are playing dubstep and trap music. Several years ago dubstep was the most popular style, and now trap took its place. What attracted you in these styles as a DJ? Originally I played more experimental music, experimental electronics like Aphex Twin and Autechre, famous Warp Records acts. What attracted me to dubstep was it combined experimental beat ethics with club level production standards, because I produced music myself in the 90-s and when I heard dubstep for the first time I realized that you could produce so much more bass if you take care of your production and if you limit yourself to certain elements in music, and so the bass attracted me. And with trap music. I have always had good friends who showed me interesting hip-hop, I had a couple of hip-hop records, MF Doom, New York style hip-hop. I like that. I discovered trap music when I spent 9 months in Atlanta. It's a good place to discover trap music, I would say. And I liked that it, again it combined what I liked about hip-hop with what I liked about dubstep. It combined the energetic bass levels of dubstep with hip-hop beats.

What are the main tendencies of development of contemporary electronic music?

Well, electronic music is a pretty broad field. You've already mentioned in your question that trap is taking dubstep's place in club culture, and I think there are numerous developments that are always parallel. One of the main tendencies that has changed electronic music has been going on for a couple of years and that is democratization of production and democratization of distribution, so manymany more people can create tracks at home with their software and upload it to Soundcloud and immediately get an audience. And this has led to vast increase in production, but at the same time you have to say that it hasn't really led to

an explosion of creativity. It leads to many people copying each other more quickly and things saturate more quickly, like some people, rightfully, claim that dubstep is past its peak and it was really quick the way it got into mainstream and faded again. And part of that is that so many people produced it quickly without knowing about the history and certain aspects that made it unique. They just copied the sounds of other people, and that's OK, but it leads to saturation really quickly, and things just speed up ever more and things turn into and out of fashion really quickly.

Trap is a mix of dirty south and contemporary experimental electronic music. And trap erased borders between styles of dance music. Today it very popular, but what will be tomorrow? How do you see the future of trap music sound?

Well, trap has a very healthy history, like so many genres, it has a local history in Atlanta that has been going on for many years. Trap will have a mainstream peak and will go out of fashion again. And maybe as quickly as dubstep, but it doesn't mean that the people who created the sound and who see it more than a fashion won’t stick to it. You can see right now that many people combine trap with other things. Only now certain artists are beginning to realize that trap means different things to different people, because if you look at US dirty south rappers like Waka Flocka Flame, who's been remixed all the time for trap tracks and he didn't even know it, and only recently these electronic producers. They now team up with the rappers, so Waka Flocka Flame is gonna produce albums with the more electronic trap producers, like Flosstradamus and it's gonna be really big for certain time definitely, but you also have tendencies‌ I don't know, I started DJing trap pretty much year ago and you could see it explode during winter, and now if you check it's the same thing I mentioned before Soundcloud and Youtube.

Everybody is producing trap really quickly and many interesting thing is not happens when. People are combining it with the worst aspects of commercial dance music, and I'm waiting for David Guetta to produce a trap track, which has no meaning except that he takes the beats, so the future of trap is healthy, like with many other genres, in the underground but commercially uninspiring things will happen and it's gonna be charts music.

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come back to the people that originally only have been sampled and they will produce original tracks. While I, at the same time, say it will be formulaic because producers will make trap beats just to be part of it. I think interesting things will happen exactly there where producers go back to the dirty south rappers, that they originally saw as an inspiration and work with them, or also with the producers for that matter, I recently saw a Youtube small documentary how originally trap hip-hop producers from Atlanta, how they for the first time heard the music that they inspired, by Flosstradamus and Major Lazer. And I think these interactions between them are very interesting. The interesting thing is not that happens when you copy their music and make it into a disco dance song, but taking this influence back to the hip-hop producers, and working with them, it's very interesting and also part of hip-hop.

Party hip-hop has already had styles, lost in history after the short time of popularity. For example, miami bass.

Do you think trap will follow the same fate?

Yes, I do think that the music industry like the fashion industry lives through cycles, through short cycles, to extend it, it's the capitalist machinery of exploiting things and leaving them at the roadside, the same happened for drum'n'bass in the 90-s, it happened with Miami bass like you said. It doesn't mean that there won't be interesting things going on, but it's not gonna be as widely recognized any more. There are always these cycles of instant pop recognition that also corrupt the music, so as somebody who grew up DJing experimental music I'm always looking for the interesting things that happen on the fringes, so certainly a style becomes popular or becomes part of the music industry, it gets formulaic. It's gonna happen for trap as well.

Culturally trap music is very different from classical hip-hop and many hip-hop listeners criticize trap for loss of lyrical message and dance sound. How do you think, maybe trap is not part of hip-hop, but another new culture?

If you think of trap as the more electronic things that now happen that grew out of dirty south‌ I don't think it's a new culture. And what I mentioned before, that now people like Waka Flocka Flame are gonna work together with the electronic trap artists, that also brings it back together and it's true that if you look at the electronic aspects and you wanna be nasty, you will say it's white people taking the socially conscious message away, it's clean, it's the party aspect without racial and social conflicts, but that's only half the story, because now with the success of this it's gonna

Tell, please, about past of dubstep and trap, about early years of this music genres.

I can't say much about the early years of trap, because I have to be honest, I discovered trap when I was in Atlanta two years ago now, but of course there it wasn't underground, it was dirty south. The early days of dubstep. Well, I've been a dubstep DJ since 2005, so I think it's early days, and it was very interesting to see this development. Because dubstep, again, is basically the phoenix from the ashes of garage.

Garage had the same thing that dubstep had, this brief light in mainstream. It wasn't as big as dubstep got, but in 2001 you had garage in every fashion store, in the UK charts, and it was interesting to see 2-3 years pass and then people reappreciating the forward thinking and in experimental aspects of this tradition and fusing it with the hardcore aesthetics of protojungle and the bass from dub. I was really excited about this development. It took two years before you could see this tendency to be dance floor oriented again, because in 2004-2006 it was just experimenting with slow broken beats and bass. A famous slogan from one of the most influential dubstep parties is: "Meditate on bass weight". And they had a dark room with no lights and everybody there was experiencing the bass and space. And then in 2008 or so you had producers that picked up the tempo and combined dubstep with stepper's dub I would say, that the fast version of dub that had always been around and you had artists like Rusko and suddenly 70 bpm became 140 bpm and you had more energy and also the average party crowd realized that you can dance to it, that's when things turned around. It also got more rough. Because when you think about dubstep as somebody who only knows dubstep from the era when it's gotten big you really think about these wobble noises and harsh energy and "where's the drop?", you know, and the event of the drop, the harshest skreech sound that you can imagine, but this only really got into dubstep 3-4 years after I started getting into dubstep. So there was this phase when what was lost in essence for a period of time was the original idea of creating something that's reduced and very focused on an experience of bass. It got turned into a more party sound, which had good consequences, because certainly it was a whole new style, but also had negative consequences.

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SLOVO #21 Tell, please, about your mixtapes and albums?

I never produced an album, but I have tapes and EPs. I started producing my own music in 1994, I had a PC and I got a soundcard on Christmas of 1993 and a friend immediately gave me software to create music, so in 1994 I started to experiment with music, and at this time I understood to listen to music differently, to dissect parts, to understand what a snare drum is, what the bass drum is, how music is constructed. So my productions got better and we started releasing tapes in 1996 or so, and we sent these tapes out to people that we heard of in Berlin, in the Netherlands, and this led to new contacts, and eventually a friend and I, we had our first vinyl release in 1998, I produced a couple of vinyls and eventually in 2004 I started my own label and put up my own records.

Europe has several centers of electronic music, that make revolutions in music as a whole. What are cities, clubs, radio stations and websites you call the most important for development of dubstep, trap and all contemporary experimental music?

Of course the influential city for dubstep is London. This is where it got big, where it was created, the DMZ party was very important and radio support from the BBC, from Mary Anne Hobbs. There is a very important special from January 2006, a Breezeblock Special called "Dubstep Warz". That's a very important point in dubstep history. It's a radio show that back then I listened to over and over again.

Personally important for me were Berlin and also Leipzig, friends of mine, they were among the first people to make dubstep shows in Germany in 2005 in Berlin and in 2006 in Leipzig. And they were very important for the local dubstep scene in Germany. Websites: historically speaking, Barefiles was a very important site for dubstep. It was a site where you could upload, radio shows and mix sets and it was one of the first distribution centres for dubstep music.

Later on, of course, dubstepforum.com was an important message board, and GetDarker.com, which were the first to

have a weekly video broadcast with DJ sets. For trap music LiveMixtapes.com is maybe the most important website.

For dubstep nowadays‌ it's hard to say. I mean, GetDarker is still around and still important. It's going back to the underground, you can see it from their views on Youtube.

My friend runs a website called Dubstepmusic.biz which grew rapidly as well. And it was interesting to be part of that growth and see the user numbers develop. We featured young producers in monthly showcases. I can claim that we had some influence as well.

Who are the main innovators in these music styles?

For dubstep it's a difficult question, because there are young producers in dubstep, but from my perspective what they do right now is to keep the sound alive. I don't see the biggest innovations in dubstep right now. There are good producers and also good German ones, Ill K is a good one and Bukez Finezt is a really nice producer. You could call him an innovator, because he combines dubstep and trap in very interesting ways, that don't necessarily look on the dance floor, but are sonically interesting. I am more in a place now where I look at young producers to take certain aspects of dubstep, but fuse them once more with certain aspects of house and jungle music. And this is where I see most of the innovations happening right now. Young producers, like Wen for instance, and Etch. They are not really dubstep producers, they wouldn't call themselves that and they aren't. For trap music there are lots of young producers out there. Many-many copycats, I would say, where many tracks sound the same, and it's difficult to cut through the noise already with trap music, because there are so many things going on and you have to really look and find somebody who is generally having his own approach. And these people are around, but I don't really wanna name anyone, because it's a question I would have to see on paper, as a DJ you see so many tracks and right now I think it would be unfair of me to call out 2-3 names.

Geroyche Geroyche's trap and juke set Geroyche's mix Geroyche's label Geroyche's older music Dubstep Warz D.I.S Tikay One Etch Wen

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Tell, please, about musical scene of Dortmund.

For me that's a difficult question to answer, because I only moved to Dortmund in April, I'd visited Dortmund before, maybe every six weeks or so, so I have a little overview about what happens in Dortmund, but I'm not really deeply involved in the scene. I know that Dortmund is not as big in electronic music as Chemnitz for instance. Dortmund seems to have alternative and rock music crowds and also a strong reggae and hip-hop association obviously with the history of hip-hop in this region, so for me as an electronic DJ I have to say that where I'm from there are definitely more parties going on with dubstep and also interesting experimental house beats. Here it's definitely more rock, more hip-hop and a bit more of this, I would say, "dressed nicely" disco house than where I come from.

Tell, please, about music scene of your hometown.

Well. Some people from Belarus and also from Russia know Chemnitz for the Splash festival, Europe biggest' hip-hop festival atto some point, and there was also a "Splash" in Moscow, I think. So these organizers are from Chemnitz, even if the festival has now moved away from Chemnitz for logistical reasons Phlatline Records has its base in Chemnitz and they have, over the years, nurtured the hip-hop scene, so Chemnitz has still a strong hip-hop party scene and also young producers, like Tikay One produced also for major German artists like Casper. Chemnitz is also home of Raster-Noton a very internationally renowned experimental music label, so electronic ambient and experimental artists.

The founders of this label for the most part moved to Berlin

and they now have Berlin behind their name, but the roots are in Chemnitz and what they did still resonates with the city, because not only did they found the label but they found creative spaces, galleries, clubs. This is where I went as a teenager and got my musical education. So, I would say these are the two biggest musical aspects, of international relevance at least, from Chemnitz, even if the audience for these experimental things was never really big in Chemnitz, they were more acclaimed internationally, but the relevance of it is very big.

Whom from musicians of your city you consider to be underestimated?

Well, two years ago I would have said Kraftklub but they have since become chart musicians in Germany, they have gone number one, so they aren't really underestimated any more. A good friend of mine, his name is D.I.S. He's a jungle producer, I think he played in Belarus before, he's definitely played in the Ukraine and in Russia and he makes very-very interesting ragga jungle tracks, and he's more appreciated in Eastern Europe than in Germany, he's underestimated definitely. There are many-many producers, but he just pops to mind, because I always thought he would have deserved more recognition even as a producer. And there is another good friend of mine, nowadays called Karl Marx Stadt, I think he's also underestimated in the sense that from my view he should have had an album with one of the big influential UK labels, but it hasn't happened.

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SLOVO #21

Ammo Deus is producer and DJ from Germany, who representative contemporary hip-hop in West Germany. But Ammo Deus start interested hip-hop when he was child. And golden age affected on his music style.

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SLOVO #21 Please, introduce yourself for the presentation.

Hi, this is Ammo Deus, real name Matthaus, straight from Iserlohn, Western Germany. I'm glad to have you here.

Please, tell about hip-hop of the Ruhr Area.

KRS-One was asked a question by "Backspin" and they had two hours for the interwiev and this question took two hours for him to answer. I could do the same thing about Ruhr Area hip-hop. Now, a short answer would be that Ruhr Area hiphop has a long unique history of its own with a distinctive style in Germany. They have a particular subject matter, the things about they speak, the style of the beats and the videos.

It's a really distinctive style. That style basically consists of true, hard boom bap sound and they stay really close to hiphop as a culture, especially to the graffiti which is a kind of center of the Ruhr Area. It has had a very large, very impressive, very famous graffiti scene and some of the artists from that scene were also involved with some of the most famous records. They still work as djs. They are well respected throughout Germany. That's what I would answer.

The thing is that you should look for the videos of Too Strong, RAG and Creutzfeld & Jakob. These are the most famous artists from the nineties, Too Strong early nineties.

There you get the best impression of the real thing.

As for the younger generation, SSIO from Bonn released a great album this year. Aphroe from RAG is still putting out quality records, so is Lakmann. If you want to get to know Hip-hop from Western Germany, these are the ones to check out first.

How do you start use djing and who did influenced on your style from your region?

I was fascinated by the sound of hip-hop. In 1996 when I was 10 there were a couple of older guys around where I lived and they just listened to Fugees, Wu-Tang Clan, which were popular that time. As a child I was also fascinated by drums, by hip-hop drums, I don't know where that came from. And naturally I just liked the music and then throughout the years I wrote my first rhymes in 1998, when I was 12. I still have the rhyme book. So then during the next few years I continued as an MC and then I thought about buying a turntable and records in 2002 when I was 16, I wanted that record player for my sixteenth birthday. Then I started to collect records, but the turntable was an old Sony player, so you couldn't scratch with it. So I just collected records at first, and then I started to work, at the age of 17 or 16, in order to save money for a technics. When I finally got that, I borrowed a mixer from a friend of mine, who just had recently bought another one. That was when I started djing, in 2003 maybe. I mean I never really watched videos by Qbert and all those guys where they explain how to do certain scratches, but always went with what felt and sounded right to me. And finally the last step was when I bought my first sampler in 2005 or 2006. I think in 2006.

That was when I started to produce beats. It was exactly what I had always wanted to do. It's like to start being fascinated by the music and it started as a sort of hobby, but then I just went back from the mic to the turntable to the sampler, went back, step by step. That's how I developed and I think, I was influenced for the most part, of course, by American East Coast boom bap hip-hop, and in local terms by different

artists from the Ruhrpott, but also Stuttgart, Hamburg and Berlin.

Told, please, about your rhymes.

My original crew is Des Todes. We always liked the sort of conscious style of rap. I mean, we have had different things going on. Certainly, songs just to represent us. Represent as a crew and as a city. Then we were telling stories. There was a song where I told about a kid from my block. I mean there's things we haven't done, like songs about women, we didn't do it and I don't know why. In general, we went with the usual hip-hop subject matter, basically. We always tried to have a message.

What do you think about contemporary tendencies in the development of djing?

You're probably aiming at the new technologies, such as these things right here: Serato and all that. I mean, at first I was quite skeptical with this purist conception of what hiphop is about. But I think that there's nothing wrong with the new technologies as long as you don't want it to replace skills. Speaking technically, anyone who plays songs is djing, but hip-hop dj should have the skills, should be able to do backspins, and should be able to cut. So you don't try to hide your weaknesses or your lack of skills with the help of new technologies. I have seen Jazzy Jeff, Qbert, Premier. All of them use it. But it shouldn't go into the direction of having normal skills and letting computers or software do your work as a dj.

Hip-hop djing as a special style. What are the essential changes in hip-hop djing now?

Well, that's a tough question, because as djs work in clubs, you can see how new styles develop, new styles work with people and how they react to them. It's much more electronic. In some sense it's good and in some it's bad having to deal with electronic genres such as dubstep or even house. I think it's easier if you count on the classic boom bap.

You have the beats permitted always like 86 to 96 or 98. If you listened to some records the bpm range from 120 to 135, or even lower in songs by Lil Wayne, or Tyga, and all of these artists, where they go down to 65 to 75. These are probably the most visible recent developments. I think with the new technologies you can do very creative things. You have the new controllers for the effects; you can prearrange loops or do your own remixes easier with the software, playing your own remixes at the parties. I think those are things are being done.

Do you like these tendencies in the mixing hip-hop and electronic dance music?

It depends on the result. I told you earlier: I have some kind of democratic outlook on hip-hop. As long as it's a creative usage and the skills are also involved and if you are lucky and have a message in the songs as well, you will have a good product, a good record. Modern technologies don't prevent you from doing good music. It's a way to express yourself as an artist or just to make some good music. Here my answer is similar to that I have already given about the development in the hip-hop djing. You can do a lot of stuff; it also can do a lot of stuff for you.

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SLOVO #21 But I think that true hip-hop heads will recognize your skills and the efforts you have put to it. I think Kanye West's last album was a bit too much of crossover, too electronic for myself. But then, that's a matter of taste – it was a wellproduced album. There are also cases where there's nothing wrong. It always depends on the actual record, artist and performance.

What a specific of young generation among hip-hop djs?

That's a kind of tough question for me, because I don't know whether I belong to the young generation of hip-hop djs or to the old one. I am 27 and I know some djs who are in their forties right now. Also I know some younger ones. I can't really say something about those in general terms, because those people I've met have respect for their work. Some of them can backspin better with Serato than with actual vinyl records. So I don't know and I can't really tell the characteristics of the youth.

Please, tell about your sound? What genres of hip-hop do you like and play?

I could start with the second question. The is no one style that I just like generally, so I don't have the sort of the preferred style, because as I said earlier, as long as the record is good, I'm cool with and a good record can make many things. I will buy a record and I will play a record. Djing in clubs, for example, depends on the audience. I mean, Iman and me, we play some sort of larger disco in this area and you can go there and expect people to have a party, they want dance music and we always try to be able to play songs that we like, while still adhering to what the audience wants to hear. You don't want to annoy people. The only thing you shouldn't do is to annoy people. If we play at a hip-hop party in a small club, then we have Gang Starr, Pete Rock or even German records. French records could be possibly played there.

Apart from my work at a dj console and before the audience, for me personally for the last two years, I have started to like West Coast sound. For the last two months I have started listening to all of DJ Quik's albums again. That's all brilliant

stuff! When the sun shines, you play basketball with your friends, drinking a beer outside somewhere, it's just great music and it is brilliantly produced. So before that, when I was younger I just listened to hardcore East Coast boom bap sound – Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep. It always depends on the circumstances. So I wouldn't say there's some styles I don't really like. Concerning my own style, I can play some of my beats or the songs that we did. It's heavily influenced

by East Coast hip-hop boom Bap sound. It's not really elaborate. It's all sample based. The drums are hard-hitting, hard-hitting basses. Usually, I just go with the sampled records and if I hear something that might work with a beat or song I just go from there. It's different. It depends on how I want to work. Sometimes the sample dictates a loop or a particular drum pattern.

Hip-hop is a great experiment of the mixing different music style. What concrete experiments in the contemporary hip-hop are interesting for you? And why?

I am still waiting for someone who can make a hip-hop rap album at 120 or 130 bpm. That doesn't get annoying, or too electronic. That would be something definitely worth exploring. On the other hand, I really like contemporary stuff, progressive work. I think that EL-P and Killer Mike have released two great albums. They are synth heavy albums. They are great, production-wise, the raps are great, because I think in 2013 we just don't want yet another boombap album. You can still do that, but you would really have to pull something out of the hat to make a great album in that style that people would say "Wow". That's amazing, because it has been 20 years since the golden era and the styles have developed: some of them are good, but some are not. But the progressive styles are the most interesting for me at this time. There are many rappers, especially in street rap, gangsta rap in Germany. So they have great songs and great parts in lyrics, but they don't have albums that are classics throughout yet. Some of them could deliver it in the next couple of years.

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Please, tell about dj's schools in the Ruhr Area. Many dj's are autodidact or more study in special schools?

That's a difficult question. I actually don't know a single dj school in these areas. I know the schools for audio engineering where you can also, of course, work as a djs and get to know the technologies and how to use them. But I don't know whether there are special training programs.

What is specific of German hip-hop in your opinion?

Well, that's a tough question. I mean, the German language might be one thing, probably. But you can't really tell because there are so many different styles, some of them you can't really compare to each other. I mean, for couple of years you could at least locate the styles geographically. So it was always said that Hamburg had some sort of a funny style, Berlin had some sort of gangsta underground style, the Ruhr Area had old school, boom bap, hip-hop style. That's some sort of a myth in the German hip-hop history. By now, you have different artists and different cities that will represent the most different styles. So it's very different to tell whether there's anything special about German hip-hop, because you would leave out too many people if you say it's basically conscious or mostly gangsta rap or whatever. You just have to look for different styles together to complete the picture.

Are there some unknown directions, styles or genres in the German hip-hop?

I think it's comparable to different hip-hop scenes in other countries, to the French scene and to the scene in the States.

The most popular genre is probably the gangsta rap genre. I

mean it probably has to do with the fact that for many people it's quite entertaining, and then the productions are always very well done, the videos look comparably good. That's the most popular genre and, of course, there's conscious rappers, many of them. They are quite successful. Some of them succeeded in singing on the records, many of them play the live bands, and some of them also try to rap over beats that sound like straight from the 1980s, Miami Vice style.

Please, name the most interesting MCs, conscious rappers and boom bap rappers.

I think these are personal choices. Right now what I really like is the new album by a guy called MC Fitti. He makes some sort of 80s, electronic sound. He doesn't have elaborate rhymes or different technical flows and stuff, but still it's really entertaining and well-done. He is just a brilliant character. When you see him you just have to smile.

What concerns gangsta rap, I think, there's Haftbefehl, Capo, Celo and Abdi from Frankfurt and Offenbach. They make really good records. Some hip-hop German rappers don't like them. They think it's too stupid or too aggressive, but they make good songs as well. That's why it's your personal choice. SSIO's album is great. Some older artists continue to put up good music. That would be Sammy Deluxe, for example. He's just recently said that he's planning to release an album, in winter this year. You can always count on him. There's is the conscious rapper from the Ruhr Area, Aphroe. He made a couple of songs during the last 12 or 18 months and had considerable attention to them.

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SLOVO #21 What do the German djs release with the classic style of European hip-hop now?

I think the most prominent exponent of German djs was Dj Tomekk, but it was rather commercial stuff, I mean terribly commercial stuff. But I think the most part of the djs, if they release their records on their own with the productions, it's always more of a hip-hop thing. The last thing I can think of it was Kool DJ GQ. He was the producer and dj of Curse, a very well-known German rapper. He was a dj and he released an album, with the productions and entire songs with rappers. That was basically a hip-hop thing.

Please, tell about your scientific researches in hip-hop culture.

When I started my studies in Dortmund, it somehow became clear that there was a real place for hip-hop there. Gradually, I got involved with other people who already studied there, who were hip-hopers even before they started to study. We just sat down and talked about what you could do, we organized a conference with people of different schools and different cities, who worked on hip-hop of the Ruhr Area.

For example, Ina Brauckhoff. She did a presentation on Dortmund graffiti and wrote an article that's going to be printed in a book where she found out more details and showed the real style Ruhrpott and particularly Dortmund style of rap music. It fits together nicely. We saw that especially in the US there's hip-hop studies and the people from the universities and practitioners get together and try to

do scientific research on different aspects of hip-hop: race, class, the economic background, production techniques, meanings or those types of things. It's really essential, because in a sense the way how all of my friends and me grew up, hip-hop is not like a thing that you read about in the books. You have to do it in one way or another; you have to listen to the records. You can go and buy a book that tells you what it's about. You have to listen to the first Ice Cube albums for yourself to get the right impression. This whole business consists of analyzing it, of reducing it to this or that aspect and this scientific research. We can't be skeptical to all that, because you can read about the history of hip-hop in a book and it's cool, but you can and should get it from going to the places, from listening to the records and it will be a more natural thing to do. Still I think that people like those who make beats, who are djing, who write graffiti, they know that university work is full of papers, presentations and discussions. We can really contribute to, somehow, or refresh these discussions. Let's not talk about how backspin works and but show it to the people. I think that during the next years it will still be early stages in Germany, but I think hip-hop has a place in universities, as well. Hip-hop has come a long way, and has a long way before it. It's quite natural that people take an interest.

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HIP-HOP MUSIC

SLOVO #21

iMaNiRaN: sample-based producer, deejay, former graffiti writer, and a high school teacher from Iserlohn, Germany. Born and raised in Teheran, Iran, his family moved to Germany in 1985. Here he encountered hip-hop and graffiti culture already as a young teenager, immediately feeling its indomitable forms of expression and becoming a dedicated student of all hip-hop arts for life. Iman talked to us about the past and present of graffiti in the region where he grew up and he also gave us some insight into his production style.

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SLOVO #21 You are a beatmaker and former graffiti artist from Iserlohn. Tell us, please, something about yourself and about your creative work in graffiti and beatmaking.

Ok, my name is Iman and I go by the name of iMaNiRaN when I'm producing beats. I'm 33 years old and started getting into hip-hop when I was 14 through my brother who had a rap band back then, a German rap group that was mainly doing political rap like Public Enemy – their name was Anarchist Academy. So my brother introduced me to the whole hip-hop culture and I started – actually I started with graffiti art, it was the first thing I did – and after a couple of years I got interested in other things like deejaying and producing beats so I tried that out and also did some rapping at some point and then I sticked to deejaying and producing beats and, like, for the last fifteen years I've been doing pretty much only beats but every now and then I also spin some records, record some rap or paint a mural.

Tell us something about the early years of your graffiti work.

Ok. I started with tagging in, like, 1993-94. I grew up in the city of Iserlohn, which is close to Dortmund, and Dortmund used to be like one of the major cities for graffiti in Germany.

We had Berlin in the East, and Berlin had a strong influence on everyone because they had… like… it was our New York here in Germany, but over here in the Western part of Germany Dortmund was the graffiti capital. In Dortmund there were only few writers, let's say 20 or 30 writers that were really active, and among these there were again maybe a dozen or so real diehard bombers. And these guys they destroyed all system. They would bomb every car on the train line. So in my little hometown Iserlohn we had the train connection from here to Dortmund, and I could just wait at the station and wait for trains coming in and I would see the graffiti pieces by Dortmund writers. And that influenced us a lot because the Dortmund writers had their special style, they used to write big block poster letters so that you could read the name in big letters, names like WUT, SAK, RIO, PEST, DNK, SKED, MAS, SMOKE, ATOM. They weren't interested so much in wild styles and complex stuff, but they wanted to have simple big block styles so everybody knew who was painting the car and everybody could remember the names. And they did a lot of end2ends and wholecars. And of course everybody who went to Dortmund, or to the whole area around Dortmund, could see how everything was bombed: the streets, the Autobahn (the highway), on the highway bridges everywhere, on the city roofs, the same names would pop up like CHINTZ, IZM, SAK, SKE, RIO. So of course, they were like Gods to us, and especially Chintz, Mason and Shark became the names that all writers were talking about and they influenced us a lot. So primarily I was influenced by the simple Dortmund style, doing straight-up bombings with big letters, but of course I also was influenced by wild styles from the New York oldschool and also Berlin. But when it came to bombing, we were only down with the kings in Dortmund.

How have the styles of graffiti in Dortmund changed today?

It has changed a lot because back then, it was a very small group of people who could rightfully claim their status as

kings. They were bombing all city and everybody knew that they were the true kings, nobody would question it. But of course these guys got older and some of them stopped, some of them went away, some of them are doing other things now. Now when they stopped, it wasn't like graffiti in Dortmund also stopped, it just changed. Those pioneers influenced many younger kids who followed in their footsteps representing the Dortmund bombing style, writers like PORE, BOR, TAPS. They definitely could carry on the tradition of hardcore train bombing with the typical simple Dortmund styles. But of course a whole new generation of younger Dortmund writers also did their own thing, being influenced by a lot of other style sources that could be checked out and studied in graffiti magazines that were then distributed on a much larger scale than in the early 90s. And certainly the internet would change the game heavily when it became accessible to more and more people in the late 1990s. You could now check out styles from all over the world instantly, and the impact could be seen in the changing styles of the Dortmund writers. Before the internet we only had graffiti magazines and the scene itself, the culture. So either you would see what was going on elsewhere and learn about other styles in graffiti magazines or you talked to other writers and you learned from them. But with the internet everybody could see what they were doing in Hamburg, in Berlin, New York and in Russia or anywhere else in the world. So of course the influence was on another level.

When kids start with graffiti nowadays they immediately have so much input and authentic sources from which they can learn very quickly. But I feel like a lot of kids who start with graffiti nowadays tend to be more attracted by the "beautiful" stuff, what is considered "art" by many people, photorealistic 3D stuff or streetartsy stuff and so on. They seem to be fascinated more by a guy like Banksy rather than original kings like T-Kid or Dondi. On the other hand, you can see that there are still a lot of young cats who jump immediately into real writing and bombing, still wanting to just put up their name and go all city. I'm not active anymore within underground writing culture, but my older brother runs a graffiti store in Cologne and he keeps me updated.

Real writing was, is, and will be definitely alive!

Are there any regional graffiti and hip-hop magazines?

In the early 90s, before the internet era, the graffiti magazines were very important for us. For those of us who were active hip-hoppers within the culture you had hip-hop magazines like "Backspin" which is still out there today, but back then it was just a real underground magazine with let's say only 2000 copies or so and they would try to distribute it themselves throughout Germany. And if you could get hold of a Backspin copy in my hometown, for example, all your crew members and friends would gather around and sit together and just read through the interviews or check out the graffiti section in the middle of the magazine. And it wasn't like you could get these magazines in a normal book store, you had to get them at a concert or at a hip-hop jam, so it was very very rare and if you had a copy it was something really valuable for you. Backspin was the most famous example of a hip-hop magazine, it tried to reflect the whole culture nationwide.

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SLOVO #21 But then we had a lot of regional graffiti magazines and my favorite ones were certainly "Ultra" from Dortmund and "Backjumps" from Berlin. The Backjumps magazine was just like a bible to us. We had some original books like "Subway Art", books that came from America and you could check out the American styles of the 80s, but the German magazines showed us what was actually going on here in our own cities at that time. We were inspired heavily by the pieces in those magazines because there was nothing else apart from our own fellow-writers in our city. But with the internet everything changed, you could just go online and find a lot of different styles throughout the world. And of course then the influence changed because there was not only the Berlin or Dortmund style represented but styles from all over the world. You now could start to understand how big graffiti actually was. Normally if you wanted to be in a magazine you would send your pictures to the guys doing a magazine and then you could just hope that they would use it in the next issue. But of course you had to be good, and your pieces had to be good and you had to have already a name for yourself. Your fame was really important.

If you were someone who just did like ten pieces then nobody would care about you. They would only put people in the magazines with the really big fame, guys who were doing 10-30 subway cars a month. Going all city every day and night.

What contemporary styles of graffiti are more interesting in your opinion?

Well I've always been interested first and foremost in the original graffiti style that was invented and pioneered by the New York oldschool, where basically the idea was to write your name in stylized letters, be it just a tag or throw-up or a real piece. When it comes to piecing, I'm still a big fan of classic writing where you start with your first outlines, then the fillings, 3D Blocks and background, and finally the outlines and some nice highlights and second outlines.

Certainly I've also always been interested in the more artsy stuff like photorealistic 3D or contemporary streetart shit but I wouldn't consider it as a real writing. It is art to me, beautifully unconventional art in many ways but not writing.

I just feel that if you represent writing culture then it's about putting up your name in the first place, no matter how you put it up, whether it's a tag or a throw-up or a real piece, on a wall or on a train, it has to be your name and you have to do it again and again. You need to go all city. So as far as everybody else is concernced who is doing all that street art or just contemporary art with the spraycan, that's OK to me.

But just keep in mind that there's actually no writing in it: as the term itself already implies, it's "writing", you have to write something, not just put up art somewhere.

on the streets and keeps living on the streets, and there will never be any conventional art institution that could take writing away from those streets – simply because the writing game will always need the streets to reach as many viewers/readers as possible. Let me now try to explain why I think "street art" works on a whole nother level. First of all, of course "normal" street art is closely related to original graffiti writing. It is not only a form of art that essentially emerges on the streets, it is also an illegal business that these artists are in – although in comparison with graffiti writing and tagging it will be rather street art that is acknowledged as "true" art by society.

Most street artists also use spraycans to do their work and generally street art has also been pioneered by many former original writers and train bombers. So yes, there are a lot of similarities between the two. BUT the thing is, at the end of the day street art can be anything that can be described as art somehow happening on the street: for example, if I just stand somewhere outside on a street and take a shit, I may call it street art! Keep in mind, when we talk about writing, your name has to pop up, whether done with spraypaint or with a damn marker or any other medium. So please, if you call yourself a writer, then you should fuckin write something! Anything else is just art.

Today street art is very popular. How do you think this popularity influences the quality of concrete works of young artists? Maybe many of them have a false fame only because street art is very popular among young people?

Graffiti and street art – so you say these terms have a different meaning. Could you explain that a little bit more?

OK, as I already said, the term "writing" already implies that it is about writing, specifically it is about writing your name as often as possible on surfaces that are visible to as many people as possible. Now of course writing needs to be understood as a form of street art simply because it emerged

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I would agree. But it's something you have to accept. This new street art hype has developed its own movement, its own dynamic. I think it's very natural that more young people out there are attracted to this art form simply because it is socially more acceptable than graffiti writing and bombing. And it's not like something that is totally new, back in the days there were also many street artists around, many of them were doing both graff and street art, for example with stickers. But nowadays it has become the hype. It's hip to do street art. You see it everywhere, especially when you're living in a city like Berlin where it's all over the place and of course as a young kid you are then influenced automatically – and most likely you don't recognize where street art actually comes from. And then I guess it's just about you finding other experienced artists within the culture that you can talk to, so that they explain to you where all this comes from and so that they give you, let's say, a wider perspective on the whole culture and its history, especially with regard to graffiti writing.

Are younger artists interested in the culture's history and do they want to know more about the older generations?

Of course there's some kids among the younger generation who are interested in the old school or in people representing older generations, but I think that graffiti has always developed its own new dynamic within every generation because it has always been something that primarily teenagers feel attracted to. You start identifying with graffiti culture because you're young, rebellious, and you desperately need a form of self-expression. And then you find in graffiti (or in hip-hop in general) an art form that

gives you a voice to overcome the oppression of your individual creativity. When younger people start with graffiti culture or even with hip-hop, I feel like most of them are interested in the history of the old school but only a few of them start really studying it. I consider myself as someone who has always been studying it, not only hiphop, but also graffiti in particular. And I have also always questioned where all of it actually comes from. One of the most important things I think we really need to reconsider is why we still say "this is graffiti and it is a part of hip-hop culture". You know, the concept that graffiti is one of the hip-hop elements. Because I've met a lot of graffiti writers in my life who don't feel connected to hip-hop culture at all.

They live their own culture, they live writing culture 100% but they don't listen to rap music and they find it funny if someone wears hip-hop clothing like caps or baggy pants.

So I think we need to reconsider the big myth behind all the "graffiti as a part of hip-hop" concepts. But of course a lot of hip-hoppers think this is the only true story: graffiti is definitely a part of hip-hop. So coming back to the younger generation of graffiti artists again, some of them will start doing graffiti and understand it as an element of hip-hop from the beginning. Others will just start with graffiti because it is an interesting form of expression, they may just identify with graffiti's pure rebelliousness but they won't develop any connection to hip-hop. The whole "graffiti as part of hip-hop" myth has definitely been reinforced through the constant repetition of this idea through the hiphop media: hip-hop magazines tend to just repeat the idea of the four hip-hop elements again and again. But keep in mind that there are a lot of original graffiti bombers out there who have nothing to do with hip-hop!

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SLOVO #21 OK, now let's talk about hip-hop music. How did you become a beatmaker? Are there any parallels to graffiti art?

As I told you before I came into hip hop through my brother who had a rap group, a German rap group. This was also my first introduction into hip-hop production because my brother would take me on tour and take me to the studio so I would see how they would produce beats. They would show me what a sampler is and explain to me that it's not a normal musical instrument, you have to do this and that and then you can produce a beat. This was totally interesting for me as a young kid because when you grow up you go to school and everything and normal society teaches you that the musical instrument is the guitar or the piano. Learning what a sampler could do – that you could create music without even knowing music - that was totally interesting and I started just fuckin around with the sampler in the studio and doing some first drafts. And then in 2001 I bought my first own sampler, the AKAI MPC 2000 XL. I just kept working with the MPC ever since because it was always like you don't need anything else, it has everything you need in it, a sequencer, enough sample time, and the perfect swing to program hiphop beats. I know most people are usually interested in checking out the newest equipment with the state-of-the-art sound, but I think that the MPC devices are just like the EMU SP1200 the perfect tool to produce real fat hip-hop

beats.

You asked me whether there are any parallels to graffiti culture and I can only say yes, definitely. I was drawn to both graffiti culture and beat production because to me there are a lot of parallels. When you start a graffiti piece on a wall or a train, the first thing you do is the first outlines, and then you do the filling, the second outlines, the highlights, and background. And producing a beat follows a similar procedure. You have a sample and you have to do something with the sample and then you cut and chop it, arrange a loop and then the other elements of the beat come on top of it, the snare, the kick or more kicks, hi-hats, and the bassline. So you create a beat actually like a piece when you're doing graffiti.

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iMaNiRaN's Soundcloud Old school of Dortmund graffiti Eloquent's album – vinyl and MP-3. iMaNiRaN produced tracks "Gegenentwurf" & "Elo's Blues" from this album

HIP-HOP MUSIC

SLOVO #21

Murasame is MC from France. His rap keep message and soul of classic hip-hop. And, of course, his style is a part of global French hip-hop culture.

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SLOVO #21 Tell, please, about yourself. When you came to hip-hop and how everything changed in your music and lyrics over these years?

I knew rap (long before hip-hop) just like everyone else in the early 90s, with MC Solaar. This is the first time the fate of the underground Rap if I may say, since it is still very confidential, especially for someone like me who lives, has the time, 70 km from Paris. And I'm young, I have no notion of what can be hip-hop cultural sense.

And so in 1995 two major albums for me, "Paris Sous Les Bombes" Supreme NTM and especially "Meteque Et Mat" Akhenaton.

The first will give me my first slap in terms of sound. It knocks the U.S., but I do not know yet. And it's a record that perfectly matched the teenager I was. It screamed, it was shit my parents, perfect:).

And Akhenaton, he spoke to the adult I'd become. Never a disc has made me such an effect. The album opens with a song that is call "The Cosca." It was the story of a Sicilian born in 1903 who was enlisted in the Cosa Nostra. This is absolutely not an ode to the mafia could have as do guys like Raekwon and Kool G Rap, is really the biography of the man with the sad end that you can imagine. It affected me in the sense that I realized that Rap could talk about everything. From there, rap really interested me so much that I "documented", listened to a maximum of tips, up for lost time musically. That's for the "listener" part so to speak.

In 1997, out what I consider one of the greatest French rap albums, namely "L'ecole Du Micro D'argent" IAM. Electroshock, direct. It is from this moment I am studying the construction of texts, rhymes, how assembled for their particular meaning. And in 1998, an artist named Fabe released his third album entitled "Detournement De Son".

Another slap, and it is at this moment that I realize guilty of genocide entire forest has strength to write. This is the record that made me go from a simple listener who tries.

Tell, please, about hip-hop scene of Lille.

The Lille scene, I know enough evil to speak the truth. I'm based in Lille since last year. Nevertheless, it is a lively scene, which organizes projects coming out. Earlier this year, The Junction, one of the leading groups in the region released the album "The Point on J", a very good record.

Meanwhile, the Feini-x Crew won a national competition.

These are live performers, and lovely guys at that. Their latest mixtape is a free download. And recently, the group has Rapsodie me a good slap with their project "Prelude."

Not to mention the Psykokondriak in delirium metal/rap fusion. There are many activists in Lille, I mentioned that you're the ones I know, but I'm not the best person to talk about it.

Today popular French rap more and more using electronic sound and pop music. What do you think about these experiments and about tendencies of development French hip-hop?

It's funny that you say, because I think that at this moment, have returned more to the samples. After that, I do not know what you get in terms of French rap. For me I think the fall have the opposite extreme now: everyone wants to return to the samples but by sampling everything and anything, no matter how. For quoted you a simple example, a guy like RZA and Pete Rock sampled not as hard they loved the base.

There, I feel that is not done a musical culture, have sought the loop.

But after that, regardless of the method as long as the result is good. I can appreciate the work of Booba, because production hits hard, no matter what he says. Basically, I prefer a synthetic tape production rather than producing sampled soulless. But again as long as the result is good, have cares of the method.

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HIP-HOP MUSIC

SLOVO #21

Classics of French rap are world-wide legends equally famous to American MCs. But French hip-hop isn't a copy of American one. It has an original style. Why French hip-hop became original since the early years?

I'll tell you all stupid stuff, but in France, does not make statements of worn these "classic". The Americans say that the France is the second largest market in terms of rap here have did not realize. The problem of French rap is that it looks at the navel. Both the French scans it is in the United States, as he that damn about what this can happen elsewhere. At least that's my feelings. While there the great things that are happening, what would that in the Netherlands, with people or how Redlight Boogie Mc Melodee. The English also do crazy things without counting Spain, Italy... And I do not even talk to you Africa... A guy like Nix for example, is a Senegalese rapper who could easily get a place on the french and international markets Personally, I find that even today, the French rap is a copy of what is in the USA with at least 10 years behind. But it does not have to be ashamed! Rap, no matter their nationality has its stars and its icons. A guy like Madlib for example, there is only one! Since J Dilla died (RIP), the French tried to copied thousands of times. But in vain, there was only one, and the better I want to say. Myself, I look at what it is that the states than it is in France that, although the producers have is excellent.

Outside France we know only the most popular MCs. But every country has MCs, undeservedly forgotten and young MCs, not yet famous. Tell, please, about these MCs from France.

My friends, if you knew. You said that in every city in France you have an MC. That's the reality in France. To answer you properly, I need you to tell me what you know MC in Belarus. I swear it's true.

I'm telling you a story: I was a seller of record for 3 years (no, rap does not pay:)). In France, the outputs that are hard

on Monday. Every Monday, they are at least 10 new rap album comes out. Mostly independent. Reflect two seconds.

Every Monday, you have hard guys who were able to push the process of creating a disk has a head, that is to say, to mix, mastered, pressed and distribute them nationwide drive.

Besides that, how many guys so free projects on the net, or do not have the means to pay the pressing, or just who cares who fucks any open mic ... That's the reality of french rap music saturated In the middle of 90s rap in France has already become the most popular music style played on radio. How it changed rap industry in the past 15 years?

In fact, the report will be released massively radio that through a single radio: Skyrock. And so completely interested. Little history lesson: in 1996 I believe, a minister called Jacques Toubon imposes a quota of French radio song.

Leaders look to Skyrock that sells the most in terms of French song, bingo, it's rap. Overnight, have passed a pop programming, a rap programming.

Summarize things well: the United States, the report is returned to the customs. He spends hours of great listening, Ice Cube goes from "The AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" has "Barbershop" and Lil'Wayne double Smurfs. In France, is still in the stage caricature. Hip-hop is still considered a subculture. And the sad thing is that everyone ca firm mouth.

In fact, the report by France to continue its evolution, but the shadow of the mainstream media who still do not know, because 15 years later, Skyrock spends only rap/pop. Or, the rap that buys advertising space. But that is another debate.

Today in France rap is not only an art, but means of getting money. Is it a real way of material support of family?

Not. I can not get any easier as you answer. Unless you are signed into a major company or to 150 concerts a year, no, you do not make money as MC.

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HIP-HOP MUSIC

SLOVO #21

What has changed in lyrics compared with old school French rap?

The main change is that now the rappers fully assume their capitalist side. At least front. The emancipation of independence is for many. Now you guys know how much costs a studio session, how much costs the promotion of their album, how much costs manufacture. The money does not fall from heaven, and it should be organized. Before rappers said he did it for "the love of art". But it was easy to say a late 90's when the report was released less 200,000 sales. Now the party is over, the golden disk rose from 100,000 to 50,000 copies, there was internet, and when you come to sell records in 1000, is already a fucking feat! Finally, the topics are the same, it's just the time that has changed. Today, for example, released a project without having 3 or 4 videos is almost commercial suicide...

Your discography has two releases: mixtape "Impulsion" and album "Dans Mon Lab". Tell, please, about music and lyrics of this releases.

I started to write "Impulsion" during the recording of "KO technik" in 2008. At this time I have a surfeit of music. I write non-stop. I write in such a pace, I'm almost on all the tracks of "KO technik" and it frustrates me not being able to do more. This is where Low Cut said "go ahead, is your mixtape, I'm with you". When he said that, it releases the beast. I completely loose, I fucks any side B that I like at the time, and members of the KO follow me in my delirium, since they are the only guests. With hindsight, I think this project is heavy enough, very dense. There is almost no chorus, it is only the flow. It is aptly named.

"Dans Mon Lab" has been designed in a very different context. In June 2010, I got sick. I have a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Hospital, three months of convalescence. The summer will be long. I have a little money aside, I bought a sound card and a microphone. A passage in Low Cut Express for training on Pro Tools and go. Unconsciously at this time, I started "Dans Mon Lab" because some piece writing during this summer 2010 will be in the final tracklist. The real trigger, ca was the release of "Dans L'ombre Du Vestiaire" KO This is a project that I carried one arm and an administrative point of view. He has exhausted me mentally. I find to do anything but music. I need both of my isolated group, and make only the music, but in my area alone. Aside from the guests and the designer who gave me the eye, there is no external stakeholders.

What are the main topics in contemporary French rap?

In the 2000's the mantra was the street. This street, the street that. At this moment, I feel that made the punchlines especially at the expense of everything else, the theme of the flow. Any asshole who rhymed a word game rotten call it a punchline. And it says nothing. And musically have is under the sea level, because everyone picks the same sample and drum kits.

In summary, is to have a big period egotrip, a few exceptions, which is not a problem, from the moment it's done musically.

Tell, please, about collaboration with DJ Low Cut è K.O. crew.

I met Low Cut in 2002. At the time, I write in my room, I rap for the shower gel and shampoo. In high school, I met a girl whose boyfriend knows a guy who knows a guy ... you will see what I mean. Always it is that I finally met a guy who made me sing on a mixtape that will never leave. The guy likes my style and eventually brought me Low Cut. At the time he wanted to rap stopped altogether. Me it is the first time I met a guy who was at once beatmakers, DJs, sound engineers... and it is the first time he met an MC that has happened time:).

Have is quickly befriended Low Cut. He taught me almost everything I know about music. He explained the technical side, he listened to me something else, it really raised my ear.

It is a hard worker and a real good friends. What is the distance is less visible, but is called from time to time.

Anyway, ended up the group O.L.G. with Shen-j. In 2007 comes the "Hip-Hop Therapy" disc that have distribute hand in hand. During its design, have met the crew Kaligraf composed of SP Phett, Spampa and Piks. Have a set piece, the feeling going great. Have often revises in Low Cut and Phett suggests the idea of a joint project. Have directly accepts and mixtape "KO Technik" was released in November 2008.

From the have decided that the KO will be a full-fledged band, and have embarked on the design of what will be the album "Dans L'ombre Du Vestiaire". I must confess that is not a great memory. Were falling behind stupidly not just some studio, some text are written in a hurry ... It weighs on everyone's nerves, and especially those of Low Cut that manages all the logistics.

The record was released in October 2011 and I find myself alone with Phett to manage a semblance of promotion. Low Cut out of there exhausted, Shen J lost his mother ... The project comes to himself.

Today, I am only in contact with Shen J and Low Cut. Have is not cold, just have much more to this and told even less to do a musical point of view. For me, the KO was nice, but it's over.

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HIP-HOP MUSIC

SLOVO #21

Among representatives of old school French rap more MCs have socially conscious lyrics. Can the same be told about young MCs or they make more party oriented hip-hop?

It depends. There is a big school Freestyle among young people, but there are also many MC applies told the facts.

Without being specifically "committed" socially, they are chronicler of their reality. Have really can not put them all in the same bag. The range is very wide.

What are the reasons for that changes?

For me, the change is not so obvious as that. Times have changed, that's certain, but in the end were talking about more or less the same thing: unemployment, need monies, the district...

Are the problems MCs speaking about for many years are solving in France now? I mean religious conflicts, immigration and life of the people in the ghettos?

Not. All clear whether a young full of good will imagine it will change anything at all with his music, he will have explained to him very quickly that his rapping is primarily pissed in a violin. Not only does it not change, but it is getting worse. The crisis does not help us for sure. And we must not delude ourselves, France cultivates a historical racism, and even cultural, and media is giving a lot of dog to maintain.

And then just dig a little to realize that politically we are doomed. Between a left-wing representative Freemason, a minister of the interior of the Zionist left, one right uninhibited to the point of extreme blushing... Amidst all this, people have to fear, because fear and contains pushes for consumption.

And do not be fooled, the biggest capitalist in the report are now. Have monetizing its videos on YouTube, has sold his merchandising concert, featuring made to pay... I spit on anyone, everyone is trying to get out, but again, do not try to make us believe that have done it just for the "love of art".

So no, nothing has changed and nothing will change with the rap.

What is your opinion about capabilities of rap and music as a whole to solve social problems and changing public opinion about these problems?

Like I said earlier, in France the MC is still reduced to a caricature. Everyone cares what he says. Me it's been that I stopped trying to convince people of the merits of particular songs, a particular text. Often still takes me "there's no instrument, it is not music". Have already asked me to rap with a live band. Everyone does what he wants, but see I see it as a way to watered down his music. Fuck you with your live band, I liked the music because it was raw and spontaneous.

You did not need to learn music theory. You took a b-side, a paper and a pen, and go there, Rap. Have is still, then imagined that the rap influence of a social and political point of view...

Tell, please, about collaborations with foreign MCs. I have not had much opportunity to rap with MC abroad. I participated in the remix of "Bastards" of PHETT with Nix and Abass Abass, two Senegalese MC. I ran Dirt Platoon in Low Cut when working on a novel for "NY Minute France Finest", but it is confined to his. And lately I've been invited by the Ninth aromotherapy a Ukrainian crew. A good experience, guys humanly impeccable.

No matter where you come from, if the sound is good, I am.

What are your releases coming soon?

I work on an EP called "1800 ĂŞĂŹ", produced entirely by the crew Alf Aromotherapy precisely. It will be distributed exclusively via digital platforms known legal. There will be invited French and Ukrainian.

Have'll talk about when it will be released:).

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Murasame's Facebook

HIP-HOP MUSIC

SLOVO #21

So Muzyf a.k.a. bboy Remy is MC, producer and bboy from Paris.

This man work in several elements of hip-hop and understanding their soul. He collaborate with French and Italian MCs and he can compare hip-hop in this countries.

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SLOVO #21

Please, introduce yourself.

Okay, So Muzyf, Babakar, Boucaner, bboy Remy, Musif Clique, Studio Style. Voila.

Tell, please, about contemporary French hip-hop. What changed in French hip-hop in last ten years?

Okay, so for the past 10 years a lot of things have changed.

You got the new generations coming- you got the new school, the old school, but this new generation is different mentally. It's new.

How changed original sound of French hip-hop? What influence on this changes?

A lot of people here in France listen to American hip-hop.

We also got electronic music here for clubs, we got people listening to Rick Ross here, dirty south, but still I feel like France has its own style. Sure, you got people who copy style, but at the same time you got people who get inspired and make something new. You feel it when you hear a good beat. Famous hip-hop songs here are pretty much like hiphop songs in America, but the difference is in the vocab. We have our own things we talk about and that is different. To me American rappers sound too commercial "I got a dollar bill yo", but here things are way different. Sure, we have people who rap about this stuff, but I don't like it.

Today French hip-hop mixing elements of electronic sound and pop music. Do you like this changes in French sound?

That's true. In hip-hop you come across a lot of mixture-

reggae, electronic music, even pop. I feel like if it's done good it is good. I love all kinds of music, because there are good things in any style. For example, let's take electronic music – if you make it sound good, it works! Sure, it depends on the artist who's gonna perform on this particular track, you know. We got all kinds of artists. We got Arko who raps conscious, but at the same time you got rappers who rap for fun. It depends who's gonna fall on the beat. The good thing is that if you take an electronic song and make it work for a party to get drunk and everything me personally, I'm okay with that. If it's mixed good, I feel good. At the same time here you got the underground electronic music, like dubstep for example. It also works.

Tell, please, about your music and lyrics.

My kind a style of rapping is talking about smoking and drinking because that's what I do. But still, there are conscious things I see about life – I'm 28 years old, man! I'm not going to rap about negative things saying fuck this or fuck that! My music brings fun!

What are popular themes in French hip-hop? How develop lyrics of French MCs? This is different. Old school was different. When people see things they rap about them. That's what it is, people who lived their life that inspired their lyrics back then, stuff that they seen. The community now is not like it used to be before, cause now it's 2013. Nowadays we have different problems so we rap about different things.

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SLOVO #21 Tell, please, about your collaboration with Italian MCs. Okay, I have my connection in Italy. My fiancee is Italian.

The first time I went there it was for vacation. I met people and made different contacts. I still keep a good relationship with 5 people I met there, they are from a band from Italy. I met those guys and we started making music. I met Demo – my master in studio who taught me couple tricks how to make beats. He knows all that stuff. Next year we started making projects. We make music, videos. The difference between French and Italian rap is that French is more aggressive, hardcore, you know, it's gangsta! But in Italy everybody can rap, any person can rap. You shouldn't be special to rap. Still, in Italy hip-hop is not as popular as it is in France. But I like Italian rap. I love it! Just like I love pasta or pizza! It's great to share such experience. I love both Italy and France. The best mix of rapping and cooking!:) Tell, please, about interest of young MCs to old generation. Are young people have knowledge and respect for veterans of French hip-hop.

The young generation is hard, man! I like Guizmo and L'entourage. Young generation has respect for old generation. These guys are hard! They have that old schools vibe, but they are good. People respect them too.

Who is the future of French hip-hop, in your opinion?

Future of French hip-hop I think is Kacem Wapalek from Lyon. No one knows of him. NO one! Even in his own city.

When I ask people about him, they say – Who is that? Still, he is the best for me. He is the future of French hip-hop.

Tell, please, about connection between French and American hip-hop.

It's those big commercial rappers like Booba, those French famous rappers, but you don't have to forget about the young generation, people who try to make it these days. They make music like Rick Ross, that American style. They've got connection with it, not too much though.

Tell, please, about your releases.

As of right now, I'm cooking my CD right now. I'm making a mixtape. I have songs with other people, we have a lot of things going. But I have nothing to say at the moment, everything will come up on the site. Things are coming!

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So Muzyf's Facebook

BREAKING

SLOVO #21

Mathieu – bboy from Paris. He is not only dancing, he live breaking and hip-hop. Mathieu is member of two underground breaking crew. About dancing experience and French hip-hop you will know in this interview.

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SLOVO #21

Please, tell about yourself.

Hi, my name is Mathieu, from Bad Trip Crew and Sans Limite. I do breakdancing, I like music, I like hip-hop. Yea! So, I'm from France, the hip-hop here is really popular, everybody wants to be a good dancer here.

What distinguishes the French bboys?

French dancers are really aggressive, they dance with the heart – this is French style you know. We like competition.

How breaking culture is changing with years?

The bboying and hip-hop came to France in the 80s, it's Actual Force, the ITM; first French old school rap, breakdancing; so they gave the passion for everybody, for each dancer.

Today many bboys talk about transformation of breaking from culture to sport. What you can say about that tendencies in France?

Some people here want to be gymnasts, but for me it's not the right way to succeed. The good way is to do what you want to do, it's not a sport, it's a passion that comes BEFORE sport, so breakdancing is like a book; every time you dance, you write a book, and you give it to everybody to read. I think if you cut the passion and just do sport, you will never succeed as a dancer.

Tell, please, about your crews.

I have two crews. My first crew is Sans Limite, it's a crew from Paris, and I have another crew it's a Bad Trip Crew (BTC), and we've danced for 10 years already. We stand for originality, we like hip-hop in general. My crew is a big like an army. We've danced everywhere in the world, we try to do battles, we try to do shows in theaters, we try to do ART before doing breakdancing.

Can many French bboys have enough money to live only by breaking?

It's hard or almost impossible to live to do only breakdancing, only popping, only house. You need to mix, to export your art and mix it with each discipline from hiphop. If you want to grow as a dancer and give your mind freedom, you need to change, to mix it. It's easy - people who don't mix it, don't make money. You cannot make money only with bboying. You need to do the best you can do. You need to mix everything up, maybe find something from theater, from street shows. Yes, It's difficult.

How development of industry of break dance affected the breaking culture? What are pluses and minuses of commercial using of breaking?

The commercial side of this all is not good really, because sponsors of events are not dancers, they are businessmen, they use bboying and hip-hop to make money. It's not good for bboys, for dancers, because it used to be a peaceful unity, but now it's all about money. I know it's difficult, because everybody wants money, but nowadays it's become too commercial, not underground, not true. If you are now on the underground scene, you are considered crazy. People think you don't want to make money.

If you do something you really love in your life, you don't care about money, about commercial stuff, about underground or mainstream. If you are inside the game, if you live hip-hop, you need to know that commercial is not the best way, you won't grow up doing commercial, you always want to be the best you can be. When you are broke and you have nothing, when people talk about the best ones, not you, it's very hard. Sponsors only care for money, not us, bboys.

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BREAKING

SLOVO #21 Many French bboys today have titles of world champions. How it popularize breaking among children?

They give young boys the motivation; open the doors for the new generation, for the young people. They become more interested in passion for the breakdancing, the hip-hop. If you are young and want to be somebody in your life, you can do breakdancing! Well, not the president, but you can be somebody! So they give the passion for the new generation.

What would your life be if you hadn't started breaking?

What are alternative variants of your life you see?

I also start my school of cooking! I think now, if I wasn't a bboy, I would be cooking. I would be a cook.

Hip-hop music today changed dramatically from their roots based on funky groove. Who make music for bboys in France today? Do you know producers specializing in breakbeat music?

In France, DJs make music for breakdancers, and a lot of beatmakers do too. For me one of the best beatmakers is my brother Babakar, they make great music for us, for theater, for shows, it's good.

you can dance ballet, you can dance jazz, you can dance another styles, but understanding our energy is difficult when you start it at first. In France a lot of dancers start in theater, they are good, they give another point of view about the passion and the culture, they show you what you can do with your art, with your breakdancing, because it's a new contemporary art, and so that's why the place of breakdancing is in the theater.

Who are the most interesting bboys from Paris, in your opinion?

One of my best dancers – Schlag, his name is Hugo and he's a dance guru! But it's difficult to gain big popularity in France, but this bboy is good! You can see him on youtube, on facebook – bboy Schlag, also bboy Twist, they are really good, not very unknown but good. Another one is Remi.

They are not the old school or new school, they are in the middle. Also there are a lot of good b-girls, but I'm not familiar with the b-girl style, that's why I have nothing really to say:).

How mixing breaking and theatre in France today?

When bboys start dancing in theaters, it's not the same direction. It's not the same when it comes to the dance itself,

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Mathieu's Facebook Bad Trip Crew