Episode 6: Berlin Rap Finds Its Sound with Marcus Staiger

In the ‘90s, Berlin rappers borrowed heavily from the music and style of rappers in the U.S. The arrival of record label Aggro Berlin in 2001 signaled the beginning of a transition, a move toward a more authentic Berlin sound. On this episode of Berlin Zwanzig, Vivian Host meets with Marcus Staiger, the founder of influential German rap label Royal Bunker, to discuss Aggro Berlin’s place in Berlin rap history and the label’s defining single, Sido and B-Tight’s “Aggro Teil 2.”

Om Podcasten

The history of Berlin music in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s is well documented. Punk, new wave, acid house; the fall of the Berlin wall and the stellar rise of techno. By the end of the millennium, more than a million people raved at the infamous Love Parade events every year. Dance music had arrived. But then what happened? Who are the people and what are the sounds that shaped the Berlin we know today? To celebrate 20 years of Red Bull Music Academy, Berlin Zwanzig – “Berlin Twenty” in English – explores 20 songs that have defined Berlin’s musical landscape from 1998 to 2018, by way of interviews between Red Bull Radio’s Vivian Host and the artists, journalists and scene stalwarts who bore witness to this fertile period in the city’s musical history.