Celo & Abdi

Celo & Abdi are a German rap duo from Frankfurt am Main, and they still work from the city they rap about. They are on Muzika-Balkan because of Celo: born Erol Huseinćehajić on 15 January 1982 in Frankfurt, he is the son of Bosnian immigrants and grew up in the Bornheim district. Even his stage name is Bosnian, from "ćelo", a word for a bald head. Abdi, born Abderrahim el Ommali on 7 August 1987 in Frankfurt, is the son of Moroccan immigrants. They rap in German.

Celo started writing his own lyrics in 2006. In 2008 the two met while working at a call centre, and in 2009 they began recording their first mixtape, Mietwagentape, which came out as a free download in January 2011. The magazine Juice named it its homegrown tape of the month and later tape of the year, and it brought them a record deal with Azzlackz, the label of the Offenbach rapper Haftbefehl.

After the video single "Besuchstag", their first album, Hinterhofjargon, came out in May 2012 and reached number 8 in the German album chart. Akupunktur followed in June 2014 and went into the top 3. In 2014 they also had a cameo as car dealers in the German comedy 3 Türken und ein Baby. Bonchance (12 June 2015) reached number 8, and Diaspora (2017) number 11. Its title song tells the story of their families' emigration and of growing up between two cultures; both call themselves Frankfurters first and children of immigrants second.

Since 2020 they have released their music on their own label, 385idéal, whose roster includes Olexesh and Nimo. Mietwagentape 2 came out on 8 January 2021, after several delays, with guests such as Azad, Olexesh, Nimo, Hanybal and Bonez MC, and reached number 3. Their sixth album, Duo Numero Uno, followed on 25 July 2024.

Their lyrics mix German with words from Arabic, Kurdish, Bosnian, Turkish, French and Spanish, and Die Zeit wrote that they shaped the language of German rap. At the Hiphop.de Awards they won best national mixtape for Mietwagentape (2011), word of the year for "Rrrrasiert" (2012) and best national group (2020). The playlist gathers the official videos of Duo Numero Uno, from "Paris-Dakar" to "Metzeral".