I love rap music. I love Slavic languages.
So for the past few months I’ve decided to combine the two and create mixes of Slavic rap music.
Here is my mix of of the best rap songs from Slavic-speaking countries for July 2018. I tried to go for a summer vibe this month.
There are some great rap artists out there in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, their reach doesn’t spread far beyond the borders of their own countries. Serbians know the best Serbian rappers. Russians know the best Russian rappers. Poles the best Polish rappers. But rarely have any of them heard of each other.
Hopefully these mixes will put an end to this oblivion.
A full mix of these songs can be viewed on YouTube here. Or you can listen to the mix on SoundCloud here.
1. (SLOVENIA) Nipke & Trkaj – Vsi Smo Na Istem
I kicked off the mix with a banger from Slovenia. Nipke is a recent rapper I discovered from the Slovenian city of Dravlje. He has a smooth flow complimented by outstanding production. The music video is also good. The song was released in May 2017.
2. (POLAND) VNM – Zaglusz Mnie
Probably my favorite Polish rapper from my favorite Polish rap label ProstoTV. All of the best Polish rappers seem to be coming from that label. They also create well-polished, professional music videos for their songs, although this song was simply from VNM’s album Klaud N9jn released in May 2015 without a video.
Polish seems to be the trickiest Slavic language for me to understand. I’ve spoken Serbian/Croatian since I was a kid and I learned Russian as an adult. All of the other Slavic languages I can comprehend a lot more compared to Polish. I wonder if it is the same for other Slavic speakers.
3. (RUSSIA) ATL – Туман
ATL is an incredible force in the Russian rap world right now. His songs mix an ambient house music vibe with thoughtful, poetic rap lyrics. The song Туман is from his 2014 album Центр циклона. I will definitely be adding more of his songs to mixes in the future.
4. (UKRAINE) Аппекс & Crazy Lazy – Жамевю
I found out about the rapper Аппекс off of the amazing YouTube channel Слава Хип-Хопу! which posts the latest rap music from Ukraine in Ukrainian. Before I found the channel it was quite difficult to find rap songs in Ukrainian, they were all in Russian. But there seems to be a revival in the use of Ukrainian following the Maidan Revolution in 2014 and this channel does a good job of finding the latest rap in Ukrainian.
Аппекс and Crazy Lazy are both underground rappers without the following and fame they deserve compared to how good their flow is. The song Жамевю has a dark tone to it, but I thought it complimented the previous Russian song well. I also wanted to put the Ukrainian and Russian songs next to each other in the mix to make it easier to compare the two languages.
5. (SERBIA) Surreal – Na Minut Do Mora
Surreal is a 28 year old rapper from Serbia who lived in the United States for a few years before returning to his home country. This song is from his newest album Sam U Kuci released in April 2018. The song in Serbian means ‘One Minute To The Sea’ and the trumpet sample gives the song that chill beach vibe perfect for the summer.
If you don’t speak Serbian, you may listen to this song and think that Serbian is completely different from other Slavic languages. But that is just because he is using a ton of slang in the song. I couldn’t even understand everything.
6. (CZECHIA) Rest – Vona
I got introduced to the rapper Rest on the Slavorum forum, a go-to resource for all Slav related things. He is my favorite rapper from the Czech Republic at the moment. The song Vona is from his latest album Restart released in April 2018. He’s got a killer flow and raps in a very clear tone which makes it easy to listen to the Czech language and compare it to other Slavic languages.
As a Serbian speaker, Czech is much harder to understand than Slovak. The language seems to me be somewhat rougher and more harsh than Slovak, perhaps a consequence of being Germany’s neighbor? It would be interesting to find out whether Polish is closer to Czech or Slovak, since the three seems to be quite distance from each other.
7. (CROATIA) Stoka – Lijepe Zene
Stoka is a hip-hop veteran from Croatia. He’s been around for over 20 years, kicking his career off with Croatian rap group Tram 11. He was leading the hip-hop revolution in Croatia in the days when Eminem and 50 Cent were dominating airwaves in the USA.
I picked one of his older songs for this mix, Lijepe Zene, which means ‘pretty women’ in Croatian. In the song he raps about all the pretty women walking around his hometown Zagreb and him spending his time all alone.
8. (MACEDONIA) Bobani NPC & TyTe – Колку Е Добро
A chill track from Macedonia. The song Колку Е Добро is a few years old. The music video was posted to YouTube in 2013. The rappers Bobani NPC and TyTe are not very famous in Macedonia. They have a few songs on YouTube from 2010-2014 but nothing in the past few years. I included this song because of the laid back summer vibe and the video which shows exactly what it’s like to party in the summer in the Balkans.
9. (SLOVAKIA) Majk Spirit & Delik – Free
My favorite rapper from Slovakia, Majk Spirit has been around for almost a decade now making great rap songs. He started off as a member of the rap group H16 (perhaps a play on D12?) and then eventually branched off becoming successful on his own. This song is from his album Novy Clovek from 2011.
Slovak is a very interesting language to listen to. It seems to be the closest to every other Slavic language, since it is in the middle of the so-called ‘Slavic’ sea. I’ve met people from Slovakia who were able to understand much more of Croatian and Serbian then we were of Slovak. Slovaks have also told me they can easily pick up Czech, Polish and Ukrainian, and that many people know Russian because it used to be taught in schools, although the younger generation is mostly foregoing Russian in favor of other European languages.
10. (BOSNIA) Mayer & Ayllah – O Nama
The rapper Mayer has been around for a while in Bosnia but never got too famous. His style is similar to Marcelo in Serbia. They both have a large vocabulary and use sophisticated language in their songs rapping about serious topics concerning life in the Balkans. The song O Nama is a decade old from 2008 and features a female rapper Ayllah, but she doesn’t seem to be popular either.
11. (BELARUS) Belaroots – Скрайні
There is not much rap out there in Belarusian. The language is rarely even spoken in the country and is mostly confined to rural areas near the border with Poland and Ukraine. Belaroots is one of the few rap groups in the country rapping in actual Belarusian and keeping the language alive. The group consists of two rappers, Angst and Zeman, who also post their own tracks in Belarusian.
To me it is hard to distinguish between Belarusian and Ukrainian and which one is closer to Russian. My instinct says that Belarusian would be closer to Russian, but I could be wrong. Russian speakers, do you understand Belarusian or Ukrainian better?
12. (BULGARIA) Григовор & Гена – Всичко Е Любов
I ended the mix with a short track from Bulgaria from two rappers that are part of the underground Bulgarian rap group So Called Crew. The track has a sentimental tone to it and poetic lyrics about love. The only criticism I have of the track is it is too short, it could have used an extra verse.
Listen to the full mix on YouTube here. Listen to the full mix on SoundCloud here.
