Let’s get straight to the basics: “I never got it anyway, why should that be an insult, you know? Such a dog isn’t that different from us, if you think about it. (…) We are born, learn a trick or two, sniff out a bitch or two, mark a territory or two, and then die.” Voiced by one of the semi-fictional characters on rapper OG Keemo’s album Mann Beisst Hund. A little later he then states: “We live in a world full of dogs. This whole world is full of dogs.”
The rather unimpressed answer of his counterpart: “What are you talking about?”
Such spoken interludes form the framework of the new studio album by the German-Sudanese rapper, born Karim Joel Martin in 1993 in Mainz. Even more clearly than on the dark predecessor “Geist”, which was mainly dedicated to the topic of racism and everything that entails (in the case of OG Keemo above all: desperation and police hatred), this time everything is part of a story – one that isn’t always told chronologically, or is clever in the most traditional sense. But one that is addictive.
Big, dark atmospheres. Small, redeeming comic question: “Is there a heaven for a dog?”
More on that. First to the title, which is not a reference to the Belgian mockumentary of the same name, but rather to one’s own work. Already on “Geist” OG Keemo rapped: “I’m the reason for your cold sweat / man bites dog, where I come from”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/.” All in all rather tough, street mutt gangsta rap so far.
Surprisingly cute interlocutor but then in the zoom call. Greeting phrase: “Would you like to see my lemon tree?” Both fit the album’s story quite well, which is roughly based on Keemo’s own youth. Already in the first song (correct name: “Beginning”), a younger version of the rapper reports on the characters Malik (“his father from Morocco, his mum from Mozambique”) and Yasha (“a weirdo with dead eyes”). In the midst of a swarm of frantic strings that would herald an extraordinarily dramatic scene in Hollywood blockbusters, he figuratively describes a seedy scenario. Protagonists in it, among other things: distrust, drugs – and a barking dog named Attila. Malik also says at some point: “Fuck it, who’s in the mood for business?” cracks a Honda Civic and off we go. Of course song two is called what? Exactly: “Civic”. Everything flows together here. A kind of film in music format.
It’s no coincidence. OG Keemo once wanted to be a cartoonist. So now he just draws comic scenes in the music. Smoking weed in public, running away from the police, in between hanging out for a long time, again and again long dialogues – and sequences similar to radio plays. A basketball is kicked, a car door slams. And then suddenly moments when “pause” is pressed. The subject then is his real life today – his child, the regret that pushes itself into consciousness as soon as he thinks about his youth. Big, dark atmospheres. Small, redeeming comic question: “Is there a heaven for a dog?”
Funk father Frank, his friend, producer and closest collaboration partner, who is also on the Zoom call, has put together a series of (in the best sense of the word) attic-dusty beats for the record, which are just as thick and prepotent as they are smooth and melodic – often even in the same song. The two musicians are just as enthusiastic fans of 50 Cent as they are of Sade, they say in an interview.
Funk father Frank’s really ingenious trick isn’t his radical beat-switching, but the way he combines bouncing trap drums with the crackling of old vinyl samples. Songs like “Regen” become melancholic at exactly the right moments, often only consist of short and very short loops, never boring. “This time I was able to sample and loop much more ruthlessly,” says the (not least because of his Mannheim dialect) also extremely likeable producer. humble statement. In fact, he’s just about reached the level of his American producer heroes (Madlib and The Alchemist, among others).
“There are things I’ve experienced with other people that I didn’t want to tell.”
For radio father Frank, the album is “a completely normal street story that happens every day in Germany”. At a few neuralgic points, however, they have deliberately abstracted what happened from reality. They even canceled a few songs. They had to draw a line somewhere. “There are things I’ve experienced with other people that I didn’t want to share,” says OG Keemo. Demand of course: why not? Answer: “I didn’t feel in the position.”
It’s a very current problem in a rap scene where elsewhere real people and artificial figures are at least supposedly becoming more and more congruent: How are we supposed to deal with a past of poverty today when there is at least some money there? How about the moments when you committed a crime? How much authenticity does the genre demand when it comes to such topics? And how much of it do you want and can you give? Or more specifically: “Can I even represent places where I haven’t lived for a long time? How can I convey to people that this time belongs to me? And at the same time make it clear that I’m not like that anymore?”
As the story unfolds, such questions become more present – especially in the highlight “Töle”. Accompanied by a somber electric piano loop, OG Keemo raps from the point of view of an old friend who, both angry and dejected, accuses the rapper of his success: “If you were my friend, then you would be there.” Or: “I bet my mum would be terribly disappointed if I told her how you are today.” Or, “You’re making a profit on the settlement I really live in.” His voice sounds different here than usual, almost tearful. And hurt. That’s also why it’s the hardest rap moment on the album. And the rap year so far.