Azad

Having arrived in Germany as a Kurdish refugee from Iran during 1984, Azad launched his involvement in the local hip-hop community while still a teenager, initially concentrating on breakdancing before shifting focus to graffiti. In 1988 lyricists A-Bomb, Combad, and D-Flame recruited him into their group Cold-n-Locco, prompting him to start rapping. Two years afterward the crew became known as Asiatic Warriors, whose hard beats and streetwise lyrics—delivered in a blend of German, English, and Kurdish—quickly established them among the leading German hip-hop acts, a status they maintained until their 1999 dissolution in favor of individual projects. Azad then aligned with the DJ collective the Transformers, issued solo material via Germany’s underground mixtape network, and achieved his first official release in 2000 through the “Napalm” 12" on Pelham Power Productions.

Leben arrived the following year as his debut full-length, succeeded by Faust des Nordwestens in 2003. During 2004 he contributed to fellow German rapper Bushido’s Electro Ghetto and revealed plans to launch his own imprint, Bozz-Music, in partnership with Universal. “Phoenix” served as the inaugural release under this arrangement, with Azad adopting the alias the Bozz. That same year the BPJM, Germany’s official media-rating authority, classified two of his tracks—“Blackout” and “Judgement Day”—as jugendgefährdend, or youth endangering. He joined rapper Kool Savas for the 2005 project One and issued the ambitious Game Over the next year. Its smoother production divided listeners, some hailing it as his strongest effort while others accused him of commercial compromise. Several moderately successful albums appeared through 2010. Azad resurfaced in 2016 with Leben II, a menacing follow-up to his debut that became his biggest commercial achievement by reaching number one in Germany and entering the Top Ten in both Austria and Switzerland.