East European Hip Hop

Wherever I go I buy a local Hip Hop album. This past trip, I bought 5 CDs. I did research and wrote a list of artists from the possible countries that we would visit. I couldn't find any of the Bulgarian or Romanian artists from my list and then I lost the list. That's my luck. I'm certainly not a music critic, and I only speak English, but here's a little bit about each album.

Bulgaria
artist: Rumanetsa & Enchev
album: ETHNO

The beats on this album are fairly creative. They use great instrumentation and a fitting bass in each song. One song sounds like (may actually be) a Hindi song, where the words "I like girls" are repeated in English. Now, I'm as virulently heterosexual as the next guy (if that next guy is virulently heterosexual), but I don't feel the need to repeat that fact over a Hindi song that I jacked and took as my own. But maybe that's just me. Plus, I've "graduated" to women now.

The song All 4 One (the only English title) features rap in Bulgarian, but the accented English chorus, "We are different in everything. We're so different in the way we think. We have different (something something), but we're so equal when we love." Which is either very deep or makes no sense.

Romania
artist: Da Hood
album: Secret of din Gradina

This album is pretty good. Many of the beats feature an accustic guitar and the emcees stay with the beats pretty well. A couple of tracks use electric guitar, making the songs sound like rap-metal, which I don't like. For the most part, this is in tact with other Romanian Hip Hop that I've heard (Anonim, Parazitii, and BUG Mafia), all being quite good.

Hungary
artist: Dopeman
album: Az Országház Fantomja

My friend's family lives in Hungary and they were kind enough to make me a CD of Hungarian Hip Hop highlights. I enjoyed most of that album. I was hoping to score some Ganxta Zolee, but the only album in the store was a live album. I'm not a big fan of live albums. So I got an album from the artist with the second best song (or so I thought) on my best of Hungarian Hip Hop CD. Actually, the song I liked was by Sub Bass Monster, not Dopeman, oh well.

But this album gets better with more listens. Dopeman uses live instruments and flows with the beat. It's like the Hungarian The Roots (maybe not as good yet). One song features a really terrible sample of the theme from Rocky, Gonna Fly Now. EPMD was able to pull off a decent Rocky sample, but for the most part, let's just leave Rocky alone. It's my favorite movie and I'd hate to see the sound track abused like this. The weird thing is that this Rocky sample is really out of place with the rest of the album.

Slovakia
artist: Druha Strana
album: Vypoved Otom Cojetu Vidiet

I've already talked about how I got laughed at while buying this album in Slovakia in a previous post. My friend understands some Slovakian and she was telling me some of the titles of the songs. Most are about the emcees as outcasts of society. They seem to have found their niche with this CD however. They use banging thumping beats with limited haunting instrumentation to compliment their consistent flow and deep voices. My friend listened to one song (the one with the best beat) and said it was about pimps. So, that's not so good, but not understanding the words myself, I pretend that they're talking about peace or fighting sexism or something.

Austria
artist: Texta
album: So Oder So

I went into a music store in Vienna and asked for "Austrian Hip Hop" (most in the city speak fluent English). The guy was very helpful (though he had a snoody attitude). He told me that "Austria only has two Hip Hop bands and they are both not good." He showed me the two albums and then recommended several German artists. That moment was the first time that I questioned this activity (buying a Hip Hop album from each place I visit). I felt uncomfortable explaining to him that it didn't matter whether they were good or not, I wanted an Austrian Hip Hop album, not a German one. I realized later that this guy was into hardcore rap, so perhaps the Austrian groups just weren't his cup of tea.

This album is quite varied. The most prevalent style invokes soul-samples. Sort of like a not-as-good Kanye West. Each beat sounds innovative from the outset and then soon becomes repetitive. Texta (who have done a song with Jurassic 5 by the way) sound like a group with potential. They infuse English better than most of the acts from around the non-English speaking world. But the German language doesn't always work over soul-sampled and jazzy Hip Hop

Others
Last time I went to Europe I bought an album from Poland and Germany. The German album was pretty good, and I really enjoyed the Polish one. Right now, I'd say that Polish is my favorite non-English speaking Hip Hop.