The splash! festival is Germany’s biggest hip hop event and enjoys the status of an annual family reunion in the scene. Since 1998, it has stood for a top-class lineup with the biggest names in rap as well as up-and-coming artists from Germany and the rest of the world.
Splash! was founded in 1998 by the Chemnitz hip hop artists Tefla & Jaleel. The first edition was held in a cultural center with a purely German lineup. In the following years, the festival mushroomed and moved to a reservoir near Chemnitz. Since 2009, like Melt, which is organized by the same company, it has been located in Ferropolis, amidst disused bucket-wheel and bucket-chain excavators up to 425 feet long and 100 feet high on the peninsula in Lake Gremmin.
Hip hop has been one of the most popular music genres in Germany for many years, especially among younger target groups. Half of the under-20s say they enjoy listening to hip hop, and one-fifth of sales of recorded music were generated by hip hop in 2020. It’s not surprising that the music scene is also large and very diverse. “Deutschrap” is just as multifaceted as the American scene, but has now developed its own language and codes that set it apart from the international competition. Well over half of the total market is made up of national artists, a unique feature of the hip hop segment in the German music landscape. Splash! competently represents this diversity in its billings. A successful mix of German and international headliners and newer artists makes a visit to the festival a must for lovers of the genre. At least you should know the lineup by heart if you want to have a say in the schoolyard.
