German Hip Hop

German hip hop is hip hop performed in the German language, centred on *Die Fantastischen Vier*, *Beginner* and *Freundeskreis* and rooted in the youth centres and immigrant neighbourhoods of Stuttgart, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin. Its sound pairs American boom bap and later club production with dense, compound-heavy German verse, and it divides between the playful pop-rap of the early 1990s breakthrough, the conscious lyricism of *Advanced Chemistry* and *Torch*, and the harder street rap of *Sido*, *Bushido* and *Kool Savas*. Releases on #MZEE# and #Yo Mama# built a self-sufficient national industry largely independent of the English-language market.