Just over a year ago, UK Ug star YT hopped on a track with Hamburg-raised rappers Yungpalo and C4rl, and announced: “I got brothers out in Hamburg, baddies out in Berlin.” The image might come as a surprise: Germany isn’t the typical image that rappers invoke when stunting in their lyrics, and, indeed, YT’s own auto-tuned verses had previously focused on the more familiar settings of Dubai and Paris. But the track, titled “Ballin’”, marked a turning point. After years of feeling like they’d lagged behind rap scenes in the US, UK, Paris and even Stockholm, a new generation of German artists has started infiltrating the underground forums and fan pages usually reserved for English-speaking artists. Their mission: to make Germany cool again.

And it’s already paying off. “Let me put u on sum german rap”, reads one recent post on the /r/ug_music forum that usually centres on American talents like Osamason and Slayr – this time celebrating the apocalyptic trap sound of German rapper Lelosa. Elsewhere, just a few weeks ago, underground music platform Troave heralded the German underground as “the next scene to cross over internationally” in a post spotlighting perhaps the DE Ug’s biggest name at the moment, Zackavelli. The response to both posts can be summed up in one Reddit comment: “Ts is so harrrrd wtf,” expressing equal parts surprise and admiration.

“It’s not all Berghain and Bavarian beer, and I’m glad our music can show that,” says 28-year-old rapper-producer C4rl, who released his debut album Okay today (April 30). “For the first time in a long time, we can actually add something to the global music underground; we don’t need to hide behind the other European scenes anymore.” It’s a sentiment echoed by every German artist I speak to: a sense that their country has failed to produce a cohesive musical movement since the techno heyday of the late 20th century. 

It’s natural, then, that this movement centres on Gen Z Germans – a generation that came of age admiring 2010s-era SoundCloud rap anthems from XXXTentacion and Drain Gang, and felt a sore lack of representation at home. “I actually started making music because I wanted to create something that Germans could be proud of,” says C4rl, who has been producing rap beats since before his teens. “There’s so much music out there, and we’ve heard and seen enough of it to come up with our own shit by now.” 

These same generational shifts have been transforming rap all over the world in recent years, from Billionhappy’s Nu China rap scene to Zaylevelten’s fusion of afrobeats and rage in Nigeria. The influence of the UK and US is writ large across the German underground right now: Playboi Carti-style distortion reverberates through Zackavelli and Yungpalo’s trap cuts, and the UK Ug’s jerk-rap percussion plods through Joje’s “wismarer” or the aforementioned “Ballin” by Yungpalo, C4rl and YT. 

But this new crop of DE Ug artists is also rapidly developing their own selling points. Nostalgia for German pop-gone-by echoes through the eurodance-descended synths of recent C4rl single “Jump”, while Yungpalo’s collab with Hamburg producer Speckmann, “Hell of a Night”, leans into the latter’s background in indie-electronic music. Yungpalo is also particularly significant for fostering his own Bassmuzik collective, articulating a visual identity for the German scene with their eclectic taste in electronic beats, artwork and clothing.

A maturation point for the German underground as a whole is set to arrive in July of this year with Bassmuzik’s first-ever festival, booking both Bassmuzik staples and international acts like YT in the scene’s unofficial hometown of Hamburg. It’s a manifestation of the DE Ug’s dual purposes, providing both a movement for young Germans to rally behind and a relatable cultural product they can share with the world. “It’s for everybody,” Yungpalo sums up. “If you’re lit, it’s for you.”  

Below, we spotlight five corners of Germany’s emerging underground rap scene, from Bassmuzik figurehead Yungpalo to the scene’s latest breakthrough talent, Ceren.

YUNGPALO

Yungpalo has been pivotal in articulating the DE Ug’s border-hopping identity. “I wasn’t really inspired by German rappers in the way I rap,” he tells Dazed. “As a Black kid in a European country, I was more interested in US and French rappers because I could better identify myself with them. Of course, as a teenager, I was into German rap, but I knew from the beginning that if I made music, I had to do it differently.” 

While Palo has several more traditional rap bangers under his belt – viral 2020 trap cut “TOKYO DRIFT” being a clear example – it is his willingness to experiment with more alternative rap and electronic production that has become a defining feature of the German underground today. It’s an open-mindedness that prompted indie-electronic producer Speckmann to describe Yungpalo as one of his favourite artists today, and also gave rise to an impressive diversity on his 2025 album SEXTAPE, from thumping house track “Bayern” to the electro synths of “Lean & Sprite”, the time-warping UK jerk of “Ballin” and beyond.

Perhaps most importantly for Yungpalo, however, the scene he has helped to foster also remedies the lack of representation he felt as a child in Hamburg: “For the first time, Black artists are leading a wave in Germany.” 

C4RL

Listen to C4rl’s “Sagen Wie Ich”, and you’ll hear a familiar sound: the softly-spoken “Okay” sample popularised by EsDeeKid producer Wraith9 last year. Rather than reflecting an imitation of UK Ug sonics, however, C4rl’s use of the soundbyte tells an even deeper story, revealing a shared departure point for both him and Wraith9. “I’d been using the tag for years before I heard Wraith9,” C4rl explains, who named his new album Okay. “I can’t even remember where I first heard it, either someone gave it to me or I sampled it from somewhere. I was shocked when I heard [Wraith9] use it, I guess it just means we have similar influences.”

For C4rl, these influences comprise the aforementioned SoundCloud rap golden age, as well as what he describes as “old European indie electronic stuff”. The resulting sound sits somewhere between underground rap, synth-laden dance eurodance, and mainstream pop catchiness. Perhaps the best entry point to C4rl’s universe is lead Okay single “Vogue” (the video for which was also coincidentally being filmed in London), which strikes the exact blend of pop melancholy and anthemic rap chorus that has defined some of the UK Ug’s most beloved hits. 

ZACKAVELLI

One of the biggest names in the scene in terms of streaming, Berliner Zackavelli’s recent EP, Masi 2, released earlier this month, finds an unlikely harmony between US-style Ug rap distortion and wistful lo-fi melodies. Even through the exploded 808s of cuts like “alle augen auf masi” and “wunden” an unmistakable sense of melancholy pierces through, speaking to the decidedly Gen Z rap collision of trap pioneers like Future and Carti, and the more emotional subject matter of late emo-rap stars Lil Peep, Juice Wrld and XXXTentacion. 

But, much like his contemporaries, Zackavelli also draws on the history of German music, sampling pop punk in the chorus to standout single “laufen wir zusammen”, as well as drawing on experimental electronic production in 2025 releases “hdm” and “supermasi”. It’s the sort of genre-diverse, anachronistic listening habits that are defining Gen Z the world over, reimagined from a German perspective. 

SPECKMAN

Representing the more abstract, electronic, and, overall, German corner of this underground scene is producer Speckman, who, like C4rl and Yungpalo, hails from Hamburg. Despite working with Yungpalo on the indie-electronic leaning “Hell of a Night”, he claims that producing rap music “only clicked” for him quite recently. 

“I have no idea how to make a classic trap beat, but I enjoy the freedom of collaborating with rappers and I’m grateful for anyone who’s willing to come along for the ride,” he tells Dazed. “I come from IDM & house and, for my own artist project ‘Speckman’, I would describe my sound as indie-electronic pop music.” It is exactly these eclectic influences that make Speckman, and the DE Ug scene as a whole, stand out. 

CEREN

Also fresh off a project release this month is perhaps the German underground’s fastest-rising star, Ceren. She was first catapulted to virality with her feature on veteran German rapper Pashanim’s lo-fi, electro-tinged track “Shabab(e)s im VIP” last year, which is now touching 100 million streams on Spotify, but it is her latest single, “Fashion Killa”, that codifies her own sound.  

Ceren sports a sugary, reverb-drenched blend of upbeat melodic trap, Underscores-esque electronic pop, and, occasionally, melodies that offer a glimpse into her Turkish heritage. Her visuals, meanwhile, wallow in the sort of 2010s nostalgia that is rapidly becoming the global Gen Z’s aesthetic of choice – think selfies taken on a Nintendo DS, 480p videos and early Instagram filters.

Check out our full guide to German underground rap in the playlist above.