In the 1887, Dr. Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof published the first work in Esperanto: a language he had constructed himself as an international auxiliary language, one meant to enable communication between people from different nations who do not share a common native language. The word Esperanto means “one who hopes;” the language itself was created with the intent to promote peace and international understanding. Today, there are 100,000 – 2 million Esperanto speakers worldwide. According to Freundeskreis- today’s featured group- hip-hop should act as the youth’s Esperanto. Meet FK.

mp3:“Esperanto”

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Freundeskreis (Circle of Friends) raps in four languages: German, English, French and yes, Esperanto. Over the course of the last 10 years, FK has released three albums which reached positions on the German charts of 12, 3, and 15 respectively. As you may have expected, FK’s lyrics focus on politics and international understanding – so big ups from Flight 808!

The next mp3, eimsbusch bis 0711, utilizes an anxious piano roll and sparse drums to create the perfect soundtrack for a late night smoke, swim, or stealth mission:

mp3:“eimsbusch bis 0711″ (ft. samy)

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Most recently, Freundeskreis shot a video for “FK 10″, a cut off of their 2007 LP. The video is intentionally grainy, bringing me back to those good old days in the park for which I was never present. Breaking, grilling, whole families, beautiful women wearing CLOTHING… it’s all here. Peep the latest from Freundeskreis and enjoy the weekend.

According to The RZA—who’s been busying himself winning chess competitions and pushing back Wu albums to please Ghost… I digress– German hip-hop is about 10 years behind U.S. hip-hop. Thus, what many consider the German Golden Age went down during the last few years of the 20^th century. Between 1995 and 2000, battle rap emerged (“Battlefreestylen!”) and hip-hop began to flourish in larger cities such as Hamburg and Berlin. Among the classic releases of this period, Bambule by Absolute Beginner surfaced on the Top 30 chart for albums and solidified Beginner (a plural word in German) as Hamburg legends.

Hammerhart (“Hammer Hard”), one of three singles from Bambule, caught my ear as I first played the album earlier this morning. While it may be rather meaningless to call a track “dope” on a site that focuses on only posting dope tracks from around the world, Hammerhart is one of those tracks that you could bump in just about any setting, continuously. The cut features a basic piano loop which eerily (perhaps pedophilically) caresses lo-fi drums to perfection, a reggae hook, and some pulsating yet nonchalant rhymes. Cop the mp3 below and don’t skip out on the video, which offers hefty doses of absurdist plastic fruit and bling-free, just-havin’-fun style.

mp3: “Hammerhart

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Before you head off on your own search for Beginner material, we’ll leave you another mp3 and video …lest your first ones get lonely. Every time I listen to Gustav Gans, a smile inevitably spreads across my face. This jam makes me want form a hand-holding circle and skip around to jubilant samples (do people say “no homo” anymore?). Honestly, though, it’s way ill. And fuck anti-gay statements, while we’re on topic / making them.

mp3: “Gustav Gans”

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On another note, Flight 808 is currently on the lookout for contributing writers. As we begin to put together our next editorial schedule, we’re definitely interested in getting more and more people involved. Whether you’re interested in contributing weekly or merely posting once about that one Chinese group you really dig… we’d love to hear from you. Just hit us up at info (a) flight808.com and we’ll take it from there. Enjoy Beginner and we’ll catch yall Thursday!