Polish Hip Hop - Summary

Summary

The first album by a Polish performer was "East on the Mic" by PM Cool Lee, which featured two songs in Polish. Lee was from Kielce, but Warsaw soon emerged as a center for hip hop, after KOLOR, a radio station, began broadcasting Kolor Shock, hosted by Bogna Świątkowska, Paul Jackson, an African American expatriate, Sylvia Opoku from London, and DJ Volt, whose crew, 1kHz, became performing stars in their own right in 1995. Volt also founded the first Polish independent hip hop label, Beat Records. Though the label didn't last long, it did introduce groups like Trzyha and Molesta. In Poznań, PH Kopalnia's Polski Rap - Zakazane Piosenki (Polish rap - Forbidden Songs). Now known as Liroy, the former PM Cool Lee released Albóóm in 1995, which included the hit "Scyzoryk"(Penknife).

The most recognizable polish hip hop band abroad is probably WWO, which is no more active since 2006. Sokół (who is also the owner of the Prosto Label and the Prosto Wear company) since then recorded 3 albums with Pono and 1 with Marysia Starosta (who is also Sokół's fiancee). Jędker abandoned the Polish rap scene to make dance music with Robert M as Monopol (for which he is mocked and disrespected by the present Polish rap scene and most of the listeners) and DJ Deszczu Strugi is an owner of Otra Barwa Studio.

In the last five years, the rivalry between West and East Polish rap artists has been growing, similar to East Coast - West Coast hip hop riva lry in US. This was extremely visible in the year 2010, when there was a beef between Peja with Gandi Ganda, Borixon, Liroy and some lesser known rappers from Poznan and Kielce (both in western Poland) and Tede with Eldo, Włodi and Pelson from Molesta and also some lesser known rappers which have chosen this side in the beef (all four major rappers on this side of the beef were from Warsaw, which is in eastern Poland).

Nowadays there are many subgenres of hip-hop present on the Polish scene, most notably horrorcore (Słoń with Shellerini as Wyższa Szkoła Robienia Hałasu, Pih, Miuosh), G-funk (Ten Typ Mes with 2cztery7, Beat Squad, Pelson of Molesta on his solo albums), grime (Bosski Roman of Firma), jazz rap (some of O.S.T.R.'s albums), newschool (Paluch, Aifam), rapcore (Kazik), ragga (AbraDab), crunk (Połnocny Toruń Projekt), bounce (Tede) or gangsta/"street" rap Razem Ponad Kilo, Fabuła, Dixon 37, Hemp Gru, Chada, Sobota, Peja - especially his earliest recordings), some of the artists also mix the genres (Słoń had hardcore punk and metal vocalists as guests on his solo albums and mixtapes with Shellerini, NON Koneksja mixes reggaeton with gangsta rap, Firma has reggae and grime influences but is mostly a gangsta/street rap group), but the majority of Polish rappers, both on the mainstream and underground scenes, is the trueschool rap, which resembles the East Coast sound with reflective lyrics about life and other important personal subjects (however in the underground the reflective subjects are often abandoned and replaced with emphasis on the advanced techniques of writing lyrics and rapping, such as multiple rhymes and various puns - this style is represented by Dinal, consisting of Pan Wankz, Mejdej and Urbek, Okoliczny Element, which consists of Mejdej, Ninjah and Szufla, and solo rappers such as Smarki Smark, Zkibwoy, LaikIke1). Representants of trueschool rap are Sokół, Juras, Koras, Mor W.A., Włodi, Pono, HiFi Banda, Eldo, Pezet, Grammatik.