Rapper and actor Robert Zemichiel – born in Venice, Italy on August 1, 1977 – is better known by his stage name Afrob. Moving to Germany with his family, he grew up in Stuttgart and began his musical journey in 1994. His early forays into music included singing with rap crews such as Massive Tone, Freundeskreis, Spezializtz, Die Kolchose, and FK Allstars. In 1999, Afrob released his debut album, Rolle mit Hip Hop, which reached number 13 on the German Albums chart. His single “Reimemonster” (featuring Ferris MC) was also a hit. Afrob achieved a number 6 hit that year when he collaborated with DJ Tomekk, Grandmaster Flash, MC Rene, and Flavor Flav on the song “1, 2, 3 Rhymes Galore (From New York to Germany).” Afrob’s next album, Made in Germany (2001), was also a success, although it didn’t scale the charts like his debut. He collaborated with Samy Deluxe in a new side project called ASD and released the album Wer hätte das gedacht? (2003), which became his most successful full-length. It reached number 5 on the German Albums chart and included the singles “Sneak Preview,” “Sad mir wo die Party ist!” and “Hey du (Nimm dir Zeit).” Afrob returned to his solo career with albums such as Hammer (2005) and Der Letzte seiner Art (2009) before he took a break from music and focused on an acting career. He returned to music in 2014 with the album Push and then released another ASD album, Blockbasta (2015), which rose to number 4. Further Afrob solo releases included Mutterschiff (2016), Abschied von Gestern (2019), and König ohne Land (2023).
