User talk:Valis95/sandbox

Hello Wikipedia world! My name is Isidoro Cotugno and I was born in the gorgeous city of Hamburg, Germany. I grew up in a multi-cultural household with my mother being from Geneva, Switzerland and my father being from Naples, Italy. I have lived throughout Europe and love traveling, so I am constantly on the move.

I aspire to be a vocal producer one day but I can see myself being content with any freelancing work in the music industry or video game industry. I came across music as an outlet after an injury rendered me incapable of doing the sport I loved, which is Football. I picked up my first instrument at the age of 13 and started playing drums for about a year before I dropped it again as I felt it was not my calling. Since then I have jumped from Violin, Bass, Guitar, Singing, only to realize that although music is what I am supposed to do, it did not mean I had to be an instrumentalist. I moved to California by myself at the age of 15 and attended a liberal arts high-school to increase my exposure to music. Berklee was the only school I applied to, and luckily, I got accepted. Since then I came here to desperately find my calling trying out several different majors and I eventually found out that MP&E (Music Production & Engineering) was what I was supposed to do all along.

I am a clown, a motivator, an out-of-the-box thinker, and a passionate human being ready to be faced with any obstacle thrown my way.

German Gangsta-rap
The gangster-Rap in Germany derived its roots from the '90s and since 2003/2004 has become a successful sub-genre of German hip hop. Contextually and musically, it derives its influences from the French and US-based Gangsta rap and Battle rap. Although there is a certain correlation between street-rap and gangster-rap, gangster-rap is not to be understood as a derivative since it is only partially related to street-rap and has contextually little to do with the other sub-genre.

History
Crucial pioneers of the sub-genre gangsta-rap, who have since the '90s still been active, are Kool Savas and Azad. Within the genre, they implemented an incredibly explicit, broken and aggressive text, that originally still had a lot of influence from English text elements. This style of rap, after the turn of the century, was implemented by the majority of gangsta-rappers in Germany and is, therefore, a very well respected form on the approach of German gangsta-rap. On the other hand, Savas distanced himself from these vulgar and explicit texts. The little-known rapper and also martial-arts artist Charnell thematized growing up during a social renaissance, as well as being one of the founding fathers of German gangsta-rap. Gangsta-rap in other countries, that resembled the music of the Rödelheim Hartreim Projekt in Germany, was commercially successful. Unfortunately for these underground rappers the sub-genre, during the period of the 2000s, did not have a lot popularity in Germany. This gave certain artists in the Berlin underground-hip-hop scene an opportunity to establish themselves with their lyrics representing a certain hardship acquired through the criminal lifestyle cliche, which has not been popularized before. Recognizable names from the underground scene are Bass Sultan Hengzt, Fler, MC Bogy or MOK. Another notable rapper and pioneer of gangsta-rap in Germany is Azad. Although he came from the rural Frankfurt am Main, he was a big reason this sub-genre became popular in Germany. In his lyrical text, he thematized the rigid and rough lifestyle of living in the northwest district of Frankfurt.

At the beginning of the year 2003 the process of commercialization of this sub-genre began. Contrary to popular belief, a variable of the German gangsta-rap became popular before the actual sub-genre itself did. When Sido, a notoriously known rapper from Berlin, released his album Maske which thematized gangs, drugs, and violence, this album became the first of its genre to sell 100,000 copies. Following that album Sido released another two named Ich and Ich und meine Maske which both had over 100,000 sold copies and emphasized the success of his first album.

Following the success of Sido and his albums, Bushido became the next artist to emerge out of the German gangsta-rap scene. He established himself a career and became the most important representative of German gangsta-rap of his time. Aggro Berlin, the label those two artists were both represented by, stated that this version of rap was the second more aggressive evolution of German hip-hop. Bushido's albums Carlo, Cokxxx, Nutten with Fler and Bushido's debut album Vom Bordstein bis zur Skyline had relatively little success although the prominent topics on his album reflected directly with the themes that made Sido popular.

Following the continuous success of Sido and Bushido came a wave of rappers who were trying, with the help of major-labels, to establish themselves and be recognized by the populace. Eventually came Massiv, who was signed with Sony BMG, and was crowned by his label to be the German 50 Cent. Unsurprisingly this artist did not reach the success of 50 Cent. Further artists such as Baba Saad or Kollegah have since then established themselves as relatively successful in the German charts. As of recently, names such as Farid Bang, Nate57, Majoe & Jasko and Haftbefehl have appeared on the charts regularly.

Musical Style
Gangsta-rap in Germany originated from Queensbridge-rap in the 1990s as well as french Gansta-rap. Characteristically the necessary ambiance and melody for this type of hip-hop needs to be melancholic, dark, and often threatening. More often than less the songs incorporate piano, choir, synthesizers, but also Samples from classical and neo-classical arrangements. All complexities such as minimalistic arrangements to vast orchestral symphonic arrangements are used and sampled in this sub-genre.