";s:4:"text";s:4224:" Keemo is quick to debunk that theory – he’d rather leave it at that. On the other hand, I also don’t feel ‘It's an us-against-them scenario’. It’s this circular structure of every-day racism and self-destructive behaviour that Keemo finds most frustrating.“I don't say we're to be blamed for what's happening.
Or, as a heterosexual man, I could never take on a position to tell a gay man that it’s not that bad in Germany. “I wish I wasn't the type of guy to read YouTube comments,” OG Keemo says, laughing. The last thing I wanted to achieve with this song is create more division. Sonically, 216 is as radio- and club-unfriendly as its lyrical content. Of course, 216 is one of the most poignant songs on the album, so he was completely right,” says OG Keemo.Presented without any further explanation, the title 216 had fans and critics wondering about its meaning. The song culminates in the gripping depiction of an encounter with a racist policeman struggling to accept that his grandchildren are, in fact, mixed race.
Most listeners speculated that the number in the title referred to a paragraph in the German Criminal Code concerned with “killing on request”. But I never thought I would get called a full-blown racist for addressing their inherent racism.” Since appearing on the scene in 2017, OG Keemo has been somewhat of an outlier in the current German rap landscape. The beat, as always provided by Keemo’s producer and childhood friend Funkvater Frank, consists of little more than a few piano notes, rattling chains, scattered bits of sound design and some ghoulish screams at the song’s peak. Instead of jotting down the lyrics in one go, the song consists of various lines he’s written about different experiences of daily racism throughout his life. It’s a fittingly odd choice for the lead-single of their upcoming debut album In the video for 216, OG Keemo wears a military uniform (Credit: Chimperator Productions)“I guess people wouldn't have expected such a track from me, simply because I wasn't very political in my songs so far. A self-fulfilling prophecy, as it turned out.For the next five days, in which Keemo’s song and its accompanying, brutal visuals sent ripples through the German rap scene, his notoriously funny Twitter feed kept quiet.
His musical tastes and his rapping abilities are truly advanced.OG Keemo quoted his inspiration, rapper Earl Sweatshirt, as his track 216 took off (Credit: Getty Images)On his three latest releases Neptun, Skalp, and Otello, Keemo’s biggest trick has been to perform his raps with the stoic cool of an unfazed, post-game NFL player.This knack for code-switching became most apparent in Mix that with an infectious sense of humour, and you have an MC persona as complex as the times he tries to make sense of in the track 216. But Frankie suggested that it would be a good idea to put this out as a first statement. Der offizielle Chimperator Youtube Channel. For 216, OG Keemo tried a different writing approach. Because we never address it.”The far-right AFD has surged in recent elections, with many Germans fearful about the effect this may have on German society (Credit: Getty Images)This unapologetic anger expressed in 216 couldn’t be more timely. Growing up in the mid-90s between the southwestern cities of Mainz, Heidelberg and Mannheim (where he still resides today), Keemo was raised on a diet of Sade, Nelly, Coltrane and 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’.Stylistically, he is an MC of the post-everything ilk who has mastered rap as a native language in itself; the kind that makes you wonder how people could have ever struggled to hold a beat or find clean, multi-syllabic rhymes for every curse word in the dictionary. The single was released against the backdrop of the elections in Saxony and Brandenburg, in which the “That is exactly what I don't understand”, says Keemo. Apparently, the track’s explicit imagery of everyday racism, black pride, self-hatred, and racial profiling left some feeling personally attacked. 47:31.
“People think because those themes don't directly affect them, they simply don't exist.