A view from the bus window, Munich stops pass by. You get off where you always get off. And each time the feeling of sinking into monotony grows, each time the desire to be far away grows. This is how the rapper Rumi feels when he writes the track “Heimeran”: “Do the same laps in the same Nikes/ Catch the same vibes and eat the same ice cream”, are the verses of the first part, which he autotuned voice raps to the beat.
“I felt like I was stuck. The album is an attempt to free myself,” says Rumi Dyar Sili Günes, the rapper’s name. The album is called “Aza Azul”, which is Brazilian for “blue wing”. The rapper tells a story with eight songs: It begins at Heimeranplatz, this is where Rumi grew up and he still spends a lot of time here today. Already in the second track we are at the airport – the eponymous beat without vocals lures with fast drums and tropical sounds to a far away place – Brazil. “Aza Azul is a tribute to Brazilian music. I’ve always loved it, it’s like a short trip to a tropical country.” And the rapper embarks on this journey together with the listener.
Rumi’s first attempts as a rapper begin at school. “I liked to make people laugh and I was sort of the class clown, so I freestyled everyone in my class for fun,” he says. He soon starts writing tracks, initially as a gimmick. “YouTuber, skater, rapper – I wanted to try everything. I lost interest in many things. Just not in the music.”
As often as he quit, he returned to music. Until it becomes an indispensable outlet: he started producing his own beats and released his first album last year. “By writing tracks, I’ve learned to communicate my feelings better. It makes it easier to share them with others, which also enriches me outside of rapping.”