JACE

No concept, no false arrogance, no discernible business plan, and precisely because of this, free to do whatever he feels like doing: The formula Jace uses to put his tracks together is as playful as it is effective. To say that the Hamburg MC positions himself as a satirist of contemporary German rap would probably be going too far, but his Dadaist textual cosmos is permeated with pointed childhood references and absurd comparisons from all cultural sectors. Albums such as his debut, ‘Stich’ (2018), and the high-class Dexter collaboration ‘9 Leben’ (2024) nevertheless provide countless examples of how – despite all the fun – Jace knows how to transcribe the intellectual sharpness of his started and then abandoned law studies into lyrics, beats, and flow. With the mixer set to medium, he manages to gently integrate trap and cloud rap, Hamburger Schule and Detroit dropouts, drumless and jazz samples until a viscous style emerges without superfluous imitations. German rap rarely sounds this fresh.