Otis Mensah

A poet with a keen eye for the seemingly trivial aspects of our day-to-day experience, an observer of societal developments, a sound artist without creative boundaries: Otis Mensah creates rap music that transcends conventions, unfettered by any kind of commercialisation logic. The Berlin-based artist has repeatedly made their mark over the past ten years with EPs such as “Computers Outside” (2016) and “Rap Poetics” (2019) and has gradually become a darling of resourceful crate diggers. Beats between library music and smooth jazz, conscious hip-hop and experimental sampling underpin their music, and on top go their lyrics, alternating between an introspective negotiation of the present and satirical disillusionment. Their recently released debut album “Before The Noise My Cousin” (2025) thus comes across as the work of an established rap artist that could only have emerged in the post-Covid era driven by cultural contradictions. Hip-hop in the tradition of Moor Mother and Little Simz, Benjamin Zephaniah and Yves Tumor.