Keemo is quick to debunk that theory – he’d rather leave it at that.
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Most listeners speculated that the number in the title referred to a paragraph in the German Criminal Code concerned with “killing on request”. Presented without any further explanation, the title 216 had fans and critics wondering about its meaning. This is particularly noteworthy since Geist will be released on Chimperator, a Stuttgart-based label still best known for initiating the rise of masked pop-rap star Cro. It’s a fittingly odd choice for the lead-single of their upcoming debut album Geist (Ghost). The beat, as always provided by Keemo’s producer and childhood friend Funkvater Frank, consists of little more than a few piano notes, rattling chains, scattered bits of sound design and some ghoulish screams at the song’s peak. Sonically, 216 is as radio- and club-unfriendly as its lyrical content.
The song culminates in the gripping depiction of an encounter with a racist policeman struggling to accept that his grandchildren are, in fact, mixed race. It’s all held together by a recurring reference to his father who raised him on a ‘by any means’ ideology, urging him to “never turn the other cheek”. Instead of jotting down the lyrics in one go, the song consists of various lines he’s written about different experiences of daily racism throughout his life. Mix that with an infectious sense of humour, and you have an MC persona as complex as the times he tries to make sense of in the track 216.įor 216, OG Keemo tried a different writing approach. His musical tastes and his rapping abilities are truly advanced. Stylistically, he is an MC of the post-everything ilk who has mastered rap as a native language in itself the kind that makes you wonder how people could have ever struggled to hold a beat or find clean, multi-syllabic rhymes for every curse word in the dictionary. Growing up in the mid-90s between the southwestern cities of Mainz, Heidelberg and Mannheim (where he still resides today), Keemo was raised on a diet of Sade, Nelly, Coltrane and 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’. The son of a Sudanese man who came to Germany in 1990, the 26-year-old is heralded as the future, mixing his thoughtful lyrics with street sensibilities. Since appearing on the scene in 2017, OG Keemo has been somewhat of an outlier in the current German rap landscape. But I never thought I would get called a full-blown racist for addressing their inherent racism.” “People think because those themes don't directly affect them, they simply don't exist.
“I wish I wasn't the type of guy to read YouTube comments,” OG Keemo says, laughing. Apparently, the track’s explicit imagery of everyday racism, black pride, self-hatred, and racial profiling left some feeling personally attacked. A self-fulfilling prophecy, as it turned out.įor the next five days, in which Keemo’s song and its accompanying, brutal visuals sent ripples through the German rap scene, his notoriously funny Twitter feed kept quiet.
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On 5 September, the day that German rapper OG Keemo released his new single 216, his Twitter timeline was headed by a retweet of one of his idols, American MC Earl Sweatshirt: “I guess this the part where white people call me racist for being pro black,” followed by the shrug emoji.