Cro (rapper)

Cro (2019)

Cro (* 31 January 1990 when Carlo Waibel in Mutlangen ) is a German pop - rap - artist , record producer , songwriter , designer and filmmaker . His pseudonym comes from the abbreviation of his first name. He describes his music as a mixture of rap and pop music , which he abbreviates with the term "Raop". His trademark is a panda mask behind which he hides his face.

Life

Cro started recording music around the age of ten. He learned to play the piano and guitar . He grew up with two sisters and a brother and attended secondary school on the Galgenberg in Aalen and the Johannes Gutenberg School in Stuttgart . After completing secondary school , he trained as a media designer and worked for a newspaper as a cartoonist for some time .

Career as a musician

Between 2006 and 2008 Cro was active under the pseudonym Lyr1c on the Internet platform Reimliga Battle Arena . In 2009 his first release came out with the mixtape Trash , also as Lyr1c. In 2011 the mixtape Meine Musik was released. My music was offered for free download . In addition to the rapped verses and the sung choruses, Cro was also responsible for producing the mixtape. The Reutlingen hip-hop musician Kaas became aware of him through the mix tape. In April 2011, the rapper's first video for the song Dreh Auf was released . This animated video was created by Cro himself.

Through his contact with Kaas, Cro got to know Andrej Schweizer, founder of the independent label Chimperator Productions, and Kodimey Awokou . In October 2011, Cro was signed to Chimperator. In October and November 2011 he appeared in the opening act for the Norwegian band Madcon on the Glow Tour 2011 . Cro presented himself with a panda mask during the concerts as well as in photos and in a touring blog. Psaiko.Dino , producer of Chimperator Productions, took on the role of speaker for Cro, especially in the video blogs. The interview book KerleKulte , which was published by Archiv der Jugendkulturen in February 2012 and gave an interview to some students at the Esslingen University of Applied Sciences for Cro , which was illustrated with an unmasked photo of him, met with great interest .

In November 2011, Cros' video for his song Easy , which was directed by Harris Hodovic, premiered on tape.tv as a harbinger of his mixtape of the same name . The musician Jan Delay linked the video on his Facebook page and said that Cro was "the future of German rap". In addition to his video, Hi Kids and Kein Benz , two songs from his mixtape were released in advance. In December 2011, Cro was in the show neoParadise the transmitter ZDFneo guest, where he presented excerpts from his mixtapes. One day later, the mixtape Easy was released , which is offered free of charge on his label's website.

In early 2012, several major labels made him offers, which he declined. Later Cro signed a contract with the author music publisher Universal Music Publishing . In January it started under the title Pandas gone wild! a concert tour in which he was accompanied by Psaiko.Dino. The song Hi Kids reached one million views on YouTube in mid-February 2012. By mid-April the number rose to three million. In April and May 2012 Cro completed another tour with the rappers Ahzumjot and Rockstah under the title Hip Teens Wear Tight Jeans 2012 . In addition, Cro has been on the Road to Raop Festival Tour since May , during which he appeared at various festivals.

Cro (2012)

Du , King of Raop and Meine Zeit were released as singles in June and July . Videos were also made for all the pieces. In July 2012, Raop Cros released debut album. In the middle of the month, all five of his previously published singles were in the top 100 of the German single charts . From October 2012 Cro was on tour with Raop through Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Also in October he joined Wetten, dass ..? on. In 2012 he also took part in the Bundesvision Song Contest with Die Orsons . In November, the album track Once around the world was released as a CD single. For the song, Fight the Start of the Kilians from 2007 served as a sample basis. The title reached number 1 in the charts in Austria. In November he received the Bambi in the Pop National category . In December 2012 he was awarded the 1 Live Krone in the category Best Single for Easy .

In July 2013 Cro released the long player Raop again with five additional songs under the name Raop +5 . It also includes the recently released single Whatever , which was the first Cro track to reach number 1 in the German charts. At the beginning of 2014, Cro recorded the song 8km / h with the German rapper Haftbefehl for the album #Hangster by his DJ Psaiko.Dino . In April 2014 Cro was nominated for the Echo 2014 in the categories Hip Hop / Urban National , Music Video and Radio Echo , but could not win any of the prizes. In May 2014 the single Traum was published as the first single from the album Melodie . The download single achieved the best download start in three years and entered the Media Control single chart at number 1.

In 2015 he briefly returned to the Reimliga Battle Arena for a duel . In May, Cro gave an MTV Unplugged concert in front of 300 spectators at the Scala cinema in Ludwigsburg . Guests were Die Prinzen , Max Herre , Teesy , Haftbefehl, Danju and The Orsons. The first single from the album, Bye Bye , was released in June 2015 and immediately reached number 1 in the German single charts. The associated album MTV Unplugged: Cro also took the top position in the charts. At 25, Cro was the youngest artist to have recorded an MTV unplugged album. The second single was released in October 2015 and is entitled Melody . In 2016 Cro was honored at the “GQ Men of the Year Award” in the “National Music” category.

At the beginning of June 2017, the first single releases from his third studio album, tru , were released with the songs Baum and Infinity . which was released in September. On the album, Cro turns away from the poppy rap sound of his first two albums and is more willing to experiment. With over 200,000 units sold, the single Infinity achieved platinum status in 2018. From February to March 2018, Cro went on a club tour and in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In July 2018, the separation between Cro and the label Chimperator Productions was announced. An indoor tour followed from November to December 2018.

mask

Cro doesn't show his face in public. To protect himself, he wears a mask at all musical and media appearances. One of the motivations behind the mask is the desire to draw attention to the art rather than the person. At first he wears a panda mask. When asked why he was wearing a panda mask, of all things, he replied: "That was simply the coolest mask there was on this website." Since 2014 he has been using a knitted model as an alternative to the plastic mask at individual appearances. With the announcement of the third studio album tru. Cro 2017 presents the specially designed further development of the mask. The new mask is completely white and less playful.

Designer

Mercedes-Benz CLA StreetStyle designed by Cro

Cro has been designing t-shirts under his clothing label VioVio since 2010 , which were initially only sold via Blogspot , but are now also available on their own website. In 2015, he designed the exterior design of a Mercedes-Benz CLA using spray paint cans, touch-up pencils and paint . The vehicle has been on display in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart since April 2017 .

Artist

Screaming neighbor of Cro

With the release of his studio album tru. Cro pursued the claim to be perceived not only as a musician or rapper, but also as an overall artist. For the first time, he gave friends and some fans a deeper look into his art when the new album was released in the Circle Culture Gallery in Berlin. In addition to the pictures he had painted, there were also masks and a glossy magazine specially made for the album.

Director

In 2016, director Martin Schreier released a film about Cro's life. In the film entitled Our time is now Cro took on one of the leading roles and was responsible for the background music together with Martin Todsharow and Lillo Scrimali .

Discography

→ Main article : Cro (rapper) / discography

Studio albums

year	Title music label	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		DE	AT	CH
2012	Raop Chimperator Productions	DE1 × 5 Quintuple gold (85 weeks)DE	AT1 platinum (… Where.)AT	CH7th gold (60 weeks)CH	First published: July 6, 2012 Sales: + 535,000
2014	Melody Chimperator Productions	DE1 × 3 Triple gold (44 weeks)DE	AT1 platinum (24 weeks)AT	CH1 gold (33 weeks)CH	First published: June 6, 2014 Sales: + 325,000
2017	tru. Chimperator Productions	DE1 (20 weeks) DE	AT1 (9 weeks) AT	CH2 (6 weeks) CH	First published: September 8, 2017

Awards

• 2012: Bambi (Category: "Pop National")
• 2012: 1LIVE Krone Best Single (Easy)
• 2013: Swiss Music Award (category: “Best Album Urban International”) for the album Raop
• 2013: ECHO (Category: "Hip Hop / Urban")
• 2013: ECHO (Category: "Newcomer national")
• 2014: 1LIVE Krone: Best Album (Melody)
• 2014: 1LIVE Krone: Best single (dream)
• 2015: 1LIVE Krone: Best Album (MTV Unplugged)

literature

• KerleKulte , Archive of Youth Cultures , 2012, ISBN 978-3-940213-70-9 .
• Cro - Easy to Success: The unofficial biography , Michael Fuchs-Gamböck , Georg Rackow , Thorsten Schatz , 2012, Heel Verlag , ISBN 978-3-86852-672-1 .
• Easy does it: CRO, the mask and all the rest , Sebastian Andrej Schweizer, Psaiko.Dino, 2014, Bastei Lübbe, ISBN 978-3-7857-2530-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BACKSPINTV: BACKSPIN TV # 360 - Cro (interview). Retrieved July 27, 2012 . 
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDHtHCWBmD8
3. ↑ stuttgarter-zeitung.de: steeper than the fantasies. Retrieved July 2, 2012 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Chimperator: Cro & Chimperator Productions . July 24, 2018. Accessed July 27, 2018.
5. ↑ Schweizer Illustrierte: event - the event and leisure magazine : Cro: managed Stars & News, Issue May, 2013, p.6
6. ↑ Meinrap.de: Mein Rap # 51 - Cro. Archived from the original on December 8, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . 
7. ↑ ^{a b c} November / December issue of Juice (2011) - page 40
8. ↑ https://www.bravo.de/cro-das-sind-seine-geschwister-342495.html
9. ↑ Neue-bands.de: LYR1C and DaJuan. Archived from the original on May 26, 2012 ; Retrieved December 12, 2011 . 
10. ↑ JDs-Rap-Blog.de: Cro: How it all began. Archived from the original on April 14, 2012 ; Retrieved February 14, 2012 . 
11. ↑ Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger : Interview with Cro: "And suddenly I was in the middle" , Cologne, Frank Weiffen, June 4, 2014
12. ↑ Südkurier.de: What's behind the Cro phenomenon? Retrieved January 30, 2012 . 
13. ↑ sueddeutsche.de: Rapper Cro on his lightning career. Retrieved July 4, 2012 . 
14. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro: The secret battle rounds. Archived from the original on August 12, 2012 ; Retrieved August 11, 2012 . 
15. ↑ ^{a b} Meinrap.de: Cro - My Music (Mixtape). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 30, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
16. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Laut.de: Cro. Retrieved December 10, 2011 . 
17. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro - Turn Up (Video). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 17, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
18. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro - Tour with Madcon / Mixtape in December. Archived from the original on November 8, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . 
19. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro - Madcon Tour Videoblog # 1 (video). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 16, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
20. ↑ Dasding : Cro without a mask ( Memento of the original from August 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , April 13, 2012 
21. ↑ KerleKulte , Archive of Youth Cultures , 2012, ISBN 978-3-940213-70-9
22. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro - Easy (video). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 26, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
23. ↑ Urwlcm.com: Cro - Easy. Archived from the original on January 18, 2012 ; Retrieved January 24, 2011 . 
24. ↑ ^{a b} Meinrap.de: Exclusive: Cro - Hi Kids (audio). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 2, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
25. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro - No Benz (audio). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 8, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
26. ↑ Meinrap.de: KIZ and Cro at NeoParadise (video). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 3, 2011 ; Retrieved December 10, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
27. ↑ Hiphop.de: Cro: Free-Mixtape, TV appearance and the mask. Retrieved December 10, 2011 . 
28. ↑ The Gap : The phantom with the panda mask is convincing across the board. Retrieved August 16, 2012 . 
29. ↑ Musikmarkt.de: Universal Music Publishing is fishing for Cro. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 26, 2012 ; Retrieved January 23, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
30. ↑ Rappers.in: Cro: "Pandas gone wild!" Tour. Retrieved January 28, 2012 . 
31. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro cracks the 1,000,000 views with the MeinRap.de exclusive "Hi Kids". (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 20, 2012 ; Retrieved February 17, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
32. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro cracks 3,000,000 clicks with “Hi Kids”. Archived from the original on April 23, 2012 ; Retrieved April 22, 2012 . 
33. ↑ Meinrap.de: Cro - three singles in three days (video). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 4, 2012 ; Retrieved July 6, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
34. ↑ Musikmarkt.de: Charts Germany week 28: Cro with five singles in the charts. Archived from the original on January 5, 2013 ; Retrieved July 15, 2012 . 
35. ↑ Fabian Thomas: Cro goes on a big Raop Tour 2012 - presented by Hiphop.de. Retrieved October 5, 2012 . 
36. ↑ bor: New "Wetten, dass ..?" Concept - armchairs instead of sofa, Cro instead of Maffay. Retrieved October 5, 2012 . 
37. ↑ Triggerfish.de: CRO feat. KILIANS - New single "Once around the world". Retrieved January 4, 2013 . 
38. ↑ Cro is the first number 1 in the 2013 charts ( memento from January 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on ORF.at; Retrieved February 1, 2013.
39. ↑ ^{a b} Rapper Cro receives a Bambi . In: Die Welt , November 13, 2012. Retrieved November 17, 2012. 
40. ↑ 1 Live : 1LIVE Krone 2012: "Best Single" - Krone for Cro , December 6, 2012, accessed on January 4, 2013.
41. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oXmi2hIy1U
42. ↑ Cro has the best digital single start in three years ( memento from May 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on musikmarkt.de on May 20, 2014
43. ↑ Cro on RBA
44. ↑ Anja Wasserbäch: Quiet tones from rapper Cro. In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten . May 5, 2015, accessed July 8, 2015 . 
45. ↑ Cro is the youngest artist to date to play an "MTV Unplugged". March 30, 2015, accessed on August 21, 2019 (German). 
46. ^ Cro - melody (unplugged) on Raptalk.org, October 20, 2015
47. ↑ FOCUS Online: "GQ Men of the Year" Award: These are the winners. Retrieved August 21, 2019 . 
48. ↑ Chimperator: New Cro album! . June 2, 2017. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
49. ↑ Already heard: new CRO album tru. 真 - HYYPERLIC.com . In: HYYPERLIC.com . September 8, 2017 ( hyyperlic.com [accessed September 8, 2017]).
50. ↑ Database: BVMI. Retrieved August 21, 2019 . 
51. ↑ Felix Goth: CRO: The unknown superstar goes on a club tour in 2018! Retrieved on August 21, 2019 (German). 
52. ↑ CRO stay tru. tour 2018 | Tickets. Retrieved August 21, 2019 . 
53. ↑ Cro: "Only those who wear a mask show their true colors". Retrieved August 21, 2019 . 
54. ↑ "With a mask I am treated differently". Retrieved August 21, 2019 . 
55. ↑ Stuttgarter Zeitung, Stuttgart Germany: Cro at the Echo Awards: Without a price, but with a new mask. Retrieved August 21, 2019 . 
56. ↑ FOCUS Online: Berlin: Rapper Cro: New mask, new sound. Retrieved August 21, 2019 . 
57. ↑ Mark Staiger: Cro designs a Mercedes CLA 180. In: rap.de. May 15, 2015, accessed February 26, 2019 . 
58. ↑ Markus Jordan: Vehicle exchange in the "Gallery of Names" in the Mercedes-Benz Museum - Mercedes-Benz Passion Blog / Mercedes Benz, smart, Maybach, AMG. In: blog.mercedes-benz-passion.com. April 12, 2017. Retrieved February 26, 2019 . 
59. ↑ Chimperator Channel: Cro - tru. release gallery. September 26, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2018 . 
60. ↑ Swiss Music Awards 2013 . In: Swiss Music Awards . Retrieved February 10, 2013.

Web links

Commons : Cro  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of Cro
• Works by and about Cro in the catalog of the German National Library
• Cro in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Cro at laut.de
• The Gap : Music: Rogue, Man of Sorrows, Superstar , Klaus Buchholz, June 8, 2012