Albanian hip hop

Albanian Hip Hop refers to artists from Albania, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia and Montenegro as the Albanian language is spoken in the whole of Albania and Kosovo and some parts of Macedonia, Greece and Montenegro.^[1][2][3] The term Albanian Hip Hop also refers to rappers from other Albanian-inhabited places such as the United States, Switzerland, Germany and United Kingdom. Since 2012, a team of French people tried to help improve Hip-Hop culture in Albania. They created the first Albanian hip hop festival, which took place in Tirane, Elbasan, Shkodër and Korçë. WNC (White Niggas Clan) another group from Pejë are one of the first rap group on Kosovo.

The second biggest rap group made in Albania is Banda Butuesi formed by 99ci, DMC aka Babloki and other guys from Bajram Curri, a town in the northern Albania. But the group who brought Modern Rap in Albania was the legendary 2Die4, formed by 4 guys from Fier, Albania. Other old school famous Albanian rappers are Mr Elvis, Akrepi, Rudi, West Side Family, Vagabondi, etc. Rap found itself in Kosovo during the early 90's, where the most prominent rappers were Getoar Selimi, Unikkatil, Presioni, Ritmi Rruges, Duda, Etno Engjujt, WNC etc.^[4]

Often inspired from the war against Serbia, but also helped by their melodious Nordic Albanian accent (Gege), HipHop artists from Kosovo gained higher reputation and market sale in the Albanian-spoken territory (i.e. Albania included). Kosovo's HipHop has evolved very quickly in production and lyrics, to that point where we can say that it influences people and their way of living.

Unikkatil AKA Rrebeli is one of the first Albanian rap artists, who started rapping in the early 90s, mainly against the Serbian government, who was causing a kind of genocide in the Albanian population that time.

The album called "E-Gjeli" released in 2003 by a group called NR (urbaNRoots) was the album who made a revolution in the Albanian Rap Culture.