The Particular Joy of Terrible Local Rap

Someone created a blog called Wackrap Welt—Wack Rap World—dedicated entirely to cataloguing the worst that German hip hop has to offer. Names I’d never encountered before: KM Heckert, Jasko, Aziz Merre. Each one apparently committed to out-embarrassing the others through a combination of stumbling flows, production that sounds like it was assembled from a freeware VST pack in 2003, and melodic choices that seem almost intentionally punishing.

There’s something genuinely compelling about this kind of document. Not entirely in a mean-spirited way—though some of it absolutely is—but in the way that earnest, untalented effort at something you love captures something real about the gap between ambition and ability. These guys wanted to make rap music. They made this instead. The distance is enormous and somehow human. I want someone to sit each of them down gently. I also cannot stop clicking through.