What began in 1998 in a Chemnitz youth club has made rap history. At a time when hip hop was not yet the biggest music culture in the world, the creative environment around the Chemnitz based rap crew Tefla & Jaleel founded splash! - the first hip hop festival in the German-speaking area. Within a year, the number of visitors increased tenfold. The splash! became THE meeting place of the growing hip hop scene. Numerous rap stars had their most legendary performances on splash! stages, many national and international hip hop GOATs were part of the festival lineup long before their breakthrough.
"Probably no other event has shaped hip hop in the German-speaking scene over the last 25 years like splash! Being a contemporary witness of this unique festival history with all its ups, downs and legendary hip hop moments fills me personally with a lot of gratitude." - DJ Ron
Yet the history of splash! is not only on stage a quite eventful one: In the 2000’s, the future of the festival was uncertain at times. For years, heavy rain and storms had ruined the splash! weekend for the crowd. Not even the incredible shows by international rap legends like Mobb Deep or the unique format "splash! meets Classic" could change that. The bad weather crisis also had a financial impact. It is thanks to numerous rap stars of the time, such as Samy Deluxe, the Beginners, Torch and Azad, as well as the Robert Schumann Philharmonic Orchestra Chemnitz, that sufficient donations were collected in 2006 under the appeal "Save splash!" to enable the splash! Festival to continue.
"At that time, it felt like seeing your child lying in intensive care. Only through the will and commitment of many companies, visitors and artists the splash! could be saved. Around 500,000 euros in donations were collected in the end." - Mirko Roßner, co-founder of splash! and managing director of Goodlive Festival GmbH.
In 2007, the festival left its home in Chemnitz. On the Pouch peninsula near Bitterfeld, splash! celebrated its ninth and tenth anniversaries with headliners like Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg. Two years later, what belongs together finally came together: splash! moved to Ferropolis. The legendary "City of Iron" has been the permanent home base of Germany's best hip-hop festival ever since.
"For me as a long-time visitor, Ferropolis has always been a place of longing. The mighty scenery gives the impression of a parallel world, where escapism and festival ecstasy have a much stronger effect. Every year when I leave Ferropolis and watch the splash! aftermovie a little later, it feels like being homesick." - Till Arndt, Head of splash! Festival
Parallel to the new homebase, rap entered what was probably the greatest peak phase in its history, and splash! accompanied the developments of the national and international hip-hop scene up close. From Kendrick Lamar to Travis Scott and Nicki Minaj to RIN, Haftbefehl and Cro - the best rap acts of their generations belonged on splash! stages and created real magic. The joint performances of Ufo361 and Future, Gucci Mane and Haftbefehl, as well as Casper and Marteria have long since gone down in the hip-hop history books. And the story is far from over...
