Polish HipHop Scene

Sto Procent HipHop od X 1997. © Tytus 1997-2000

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Polish HipHop Scene

Tekst ten pierwotnie ukazał się w hiphopowym zinie "Liquide" wydawanym w Singapurze (kwiecień 2000).

This essay was promptly published in "Liquide" - Hip Hop Magazine from Singapure (April 2000)

The polish hiphop music scene is heavly focused on the capital city of Warsaw, where the two most recognized groups originated from: Molesta/Ewenement and Trzycha/Warszafski Deszcz (both of them use two names). Warsaw is not only these two groups strong, there is also enormous number of other phat teams. Group Ewenement and mutli-emcee Zip Sklad are popular in Poland representatives of so called "Thug/Reality Rap" on the polish soil. They rhyme about everyday street struggles of contemporary urban/project youth. Rough style is also represented by other Warsaw groups like Proceder, Hemp Gru, Mor W.A. and solo recording artist Chada.. All these artists (except for Trzyha) are strongly promoted and produced by the artist who is probably the most important person for polish hiphop music. He is DJ 600 V (a.k.a. DJ Volt), the best polish producer who's cookin beats on a regular basis for almost all top notch groups in Poland. His uniqe skills combine with hardware that any NYC producer would not be ashamed of (He is one of the two people in Poland who own SP-1200 beat machine). This is a selection of other polish producers worthy of mention: O$KA of OMP, Janmario of Trzyha, DJ M.A.D of RHX, and solo recording artist Jajonasz. The Warsaw scene is extremely active and there is a number of other groups lyrically touching on softer issues and separating themself from harsh "street style". These who scored debut albums: Grammatik, Plomień 81 and Stare Miasto. Apart from Warsaw, we have to bring up the city of Kielce, since this city is a stomping ground for Wzgorze Ya-Pa-3, which happens to be the oldest polish active hiphop group (three albums scored and fourth one coming soon). Wzgórze often teams up with Kielce's other group - V.E.T.O. Sklad.

On the other end of the polish hiphop scene stands Kaliber 44. Basing on hiphop trax they provide hermetic alternative poetry which meets warm embrace by high-school and college students and lack of interest from die-hard hiphop fans. Kaliber 44 happens to be the best selling group in Poland (50.000 copies of their second album sold). Kaliber 44 comes from another hot spot on the map of Poland. Its Katowice and the industrial area of Silesia region. Other groups from Silesia: Gie-Gie and Czarne Złoto which are soon to release debut albums. Another city to I'll mention here lies close to german border - the city of Szczecin (125 km to Berlin), which spawned groups of Snuz and Wiele-C.T. Also the city of Lodz is known for Thinkadelic who debuted in club/party style and city of Poznan with groups of Slums Attack and Da Blaze who enjoy mostly local popularity.

Major Label-hyped rap artist Liroy (who was noted in VIBE magazine) who sold over 400.000 copies of his 1995's debut, due to accusation of commercialism and lack of authentity is now rejected by vast majority of crews mentioned in this article. As a matter of fact he enjoys this alienation in public.

The polish DJ/turntablists scene consists of Janmario and Deszczu Strugi of Polfejder Crew (the latter is official Polish DMC Champ), DJ Twister of Snuz, DJ Niewidzialna Reka (NR), DJ Feel-X of Kaliber 44 and DJ Krime from the city of Cracow.

Radio shows have played (and still play) a major part in the polish hiphop movement. First, it was Bogna Swiatkowska/DJ Volt radio shows since 1993. Bogna's news and selection of music familiarized Warsaw hiphop fans with new releases and classics as well with U.S. Black Community issues. Before she retired her career in 1997 due to starting a family life, she introduced almost all the major players in Warsaw and Polish HipHop Scene to each other. These days we got one and only Radiostacja (www.radiostacja.pl with Streaming Real Audio Server!), which provides new urban music (HipHop, Drum'n'Bass, House, Minimal) on a daily basis as well other not popular tunes as future and acid jazz, punk, ska and raegge. Radiostacja has three (!) separate HipHop shows: Polfejder Crew Show (DJ Mix), DJ600V/Tytus Show (DJ Mix + hiphop news) and Druh Sławek Show (presentation of music plus polish unsigned groups).

If you are interested in news on the polish scene (in Polish) please visit my website: http://enigma.art.pl (the site You are viewing now) which happens to be most visited polish hiphop web site. There you can also find other interesting links like http://048hiphop.cjb.net/ where you can find some essentials on polish HH music scene in English and http://huh.prawda.pl/, which is Poland's own, world famous Huh Site - the biggest web site devoted to illegal train art.

Tytus 10/02/00