16BARS

The music genre of rap and hip hop has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially in the German scene. So it is completely understandable that channels which deal with this genre of music. One of these channels is the German channel “16BARS”, which due to its quality and the hype around German rap and the German hip hop scene could gain enormous popularity. However, only a few viewers know who is actually behind the channel “16BARS” or how it got its start on and off the web video platform YouTube.

Generally speaking, “16BARS” is an online rap magazine founded by Ramon Diehl back in 2006. At that time the channel was called “16Bars.de” because this was due to the online website. The initial goal of this online rap magazine was to act as a German hip hop database. Nevertheless, the news from the German Hip Hop scene was added relatively quickly in order to be able to generate even more viewers. However, “16BARS” has only achieved its greatest popularity to date through its German-language YouTube channel.

The channel “16BARS” was already founded on 09 April 2008. Still on the day of the channel foundation the first video appeared on the channel “16BARS”, which carried the title: “16×16 Steetrotation Vol. 1 (Trailer)”. This video represented a preview of sorts of what viewers on the “16BARS” channel could initially expect. The format “16×16 Streetrotation” was a special format produced by “16BARS” with different artists from the German Rap and Hip Hop scene. In the course of time “16BARS” was able to establish itself as one of the most important media in the German Hip Hop scene with its own and different formats.

From 2010 to 2015, “especially “Visa-Vie”, already known in the German scene, was the presenter of various formats on the channel “16BARS”. Since 2017, Steph and Haci Altinpinar in particular have taken on this role.

Until today “16BARS” produces numerous own formats on their YouTube channel. These include Streetrotation, which is an interview in rap form with various artists, Rap quiz in which two rappers compete against each other in different categories, Hotbox, which is an interview format with Marvin Game hosting, with the rappers smoking cannabis along with the host, music videos, in which “16BARS” publishes its own produced music as well as the long time led format zqnce, which covers topics such as society, politics and entertainment in addition to rap. The most successful format of zqnce is the sub-format “Shore, Stone, Paper” in which the protagonist “$ick” reports on his life, which is marked by drug addiction. It should also be mentioned that the HOTBOX format has now been moved to its own channel of the same name.

Even today, new videos appear daily on the channel “16BARS”, which revolve around the music genre of rap and German hip hop. With the videos on the channel “16BARS” he managed to gain more than 998.000 subscribers and became not only one of the most important but also one of the most famous media of the German Hip Hop.