Farid Bang German Rapper Born 1986 in Melilla

Early life

Farid Bang, whose full name is Farid Hamed El Abdellaoui, was born on 4 June 1986 in Melilla, a Spanish city on the North African coast, and grew up in Málaga. His father comes from Melilla, and his mother, who grew up in Germany, is of Moroccan descent. At the age of eight he moved with his mother and sister to Düsseldorf, Germany. In some of his songs he has referred to Riffian-Berber roots.

He has named the American rapper 50 Cent as an early idol who inspired him to start rapping and training. He began rapping at 19 after encouragement from a friend known as Tekken. With help from another friend, Summer Cem, he met Eko Fresh, an established name in German rap, and signed to Eko Fresh's label German Dream. At that stage he still used the pseudonym Farid Urlaub, a play on the name of the German singer Farin Urlaub. He appears on three tracks of Eko Fresh's 2005 mixtape.

Career

In March 2009 Bang was a guest on "Westdeutschlands Kings", a track on the Selfmade Records compilation Chronik 2 with Kollegah and Favorite. In July 2009 he and Kollegah released the collaborative album Jung, brutal, gutaussehend, which reached number 30 in the German charts. His second studio album, Asphalt Massaka 2, followed on 12 March 2010 and entered the German chart at number 56. The third, Banger leben kürzer, came out on 18 February 2011 and reached number 11 in Germany, 25 in Switzerland and 32 in Austria, the best placings for him and German Dream up to then. Before it was released he promoted it with a ten-part video blog on YouTube.

His breakthrough on the charts came with Killa, issued on 14 February 2014, which reached number one in Germany and Austria. Its lead single, "Bitte Spitte Toi Lab", was his first solo single to reach the top 40 in Germany and Austria. Asphalt Massaka 3 followed on 27 March 2015 and entered at number one in Germany and Switzerland and number three in Austria. Blut appeared on 27 May 2016. In 2017 he and Kollegah released Jung, brutal, gutaussehend 3, which won an Echo Award as the best-selling album of 2017. It brought criticism in 2018 over lyrics that were accused of antisemitism, a charge made against the pair at the time. The records also list the 2017 single "Zieh' den Rucksack aus", the albums Platin war gestern and Nafri Trap EP, Vol. 1 (both 2018) and Genkidama (2020). Later albums include Asozialer Marokkaner and X (2021), Asphalt Massaka 4 (2023) and XII (2024). His label is listed as Banger Musik, and his music is classified as hip-hop and gangsta rap. In all, the records show 14 albums and one single released between 2008 and 2020.

On screen, Bang appears in the three Fack ju Göhte films directed by Bora Dağtekin: Fack ju Göhte (2013), Fack ju Göhte 2 (2015) and Fack ju Göhte 3 (2017). In these films he shares the cast with Elyas M'Barek, who appears in all three, and with Karoline Herfurth, who is in two.

In his comments on gangsta rap, Bang has argued that the genre generally has a positive influence on young men, helping them to mature, and that those who are affected badly by it misread its message.

Recognition

The Echo Award for the highest-selling album of 2017 went to Jung, brutal, gutaussehend 3, the joint album with Kollegah. Killa and Asphalt Massaka 3 both reached the top of the German album chart. His YouTube channel had about 345,000 subscribers in May 2025, and his Instagram account had about 2.6 million followers in October 2026.