Haze

Haze, born David Bošnjak on 5 November 1989 in Villingen-Schwenningen, is a German rapper with Croatian roots. He is on Muzika-Balkan because of his family: German Wikipedia writes that his parents left the then Socialist Republic of Croatia for Villingen-Schwenningen, where he was born soon after, and that his father comes from Dicmo, a village near Split. The family later moved to Karlsruhe, and Haze is still described as a rapper from Karlsruhe.

He grew up with the hip hop of the 1990s and 2000s, which remains his main influence; by his own account he hardly listens to anything released after 2000. He names Eminem and Dr. Dre as his biggest influences in rap, and next to them Croatian and Yugoslav rock music. His stage name comes from Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze".

Haze began rapping in the 2010s. His first release was the free mixtape Blues ausm Block in 2012, followed by the mixtape Karlsruher Schule in 2014 and the EP Wie der Hase läuft on 26 April 2015. He played several support shows for 187 Strassenbande, took Hadi El-Dor as his manager and co-founded the independent label Alte Schule Records in Freiburg, distributed by Universal.

After touring with RAF Camora, he released his debut album, Guten Abend, Hip Hop …, on 6 May 2016. It reached number 30 in the German album chart and the top 40 in Switzerland and Austria, with guests including RAF Camora, MoTrip, Bonez MC and the Vienna rapper Svaba Ortak. The same year he appeared on Sido's Das goldene Album with "Diese Mucke". Three more albums followed: Die Zwielicht LP (2018), Brot & Spiele (2020) and TagMond (2021), along with the EPs Zukunft (with Svaba Ortak), Zwielicht, Die Dunkle Seite des Mondes and Die Mondstaub EP.

In 2024 Haze and the Swiss rapper Mc Hero released the Dirty South EP, on which Mc Hero also raps in German, while on stage Haze sings his back-up parts in Swiss German; its songs include "Briškule (Lalala)", "Grenzgebiet" and "Rap Star". In 2025 the two toured Germany together.