Kosovar hip-hop evolution
From underground to mainstream across three decades.
|2019.06.02
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Ergen and Bim Bimma would ultimately go on to form one of the most underground Albanian language hip-hop crews, NR.
“In the beginning we wrote in English,” Pici says. “It was unimaginable to make this music in Albanian.”
Sociologist Avni Rudaku suggests that hip-hop was a “cultural resistance against Slavic music, language and culture in general.”
The lyrics emphasized sex, luxury life, and irony or sarcasm “to everything and everybody.”
As the genre pushed itself more and more onto public consciousness, the traditional media in Kosovo was forced to pay attention.
“Too many tried to return the diss to Unikkatil and gain fame, but they couldn’t lay a finger on him,”
Dany Boy, rapper“The music reflected everything that we were living… the air, the mentality or the thoughts, the corruption, politics and stuff like this.”
Ngadhnjim Avdyli
Ngadhnjim Avdyli is a former K2.0 staff journalist, covering mainly politics, governance and social justice issues. He has a degree in journalism from the University of Prishtina.
This story was originally written in Albanian.