Born as Ufuk Bayraktar in West Berlin, the name Ufo361 is both a play on his first name as well as a shoutout to Kreuzberg’s two postal codes before the fall of the Berlin Wall (36 and 61). But his moniker suggests more than that. Ufo361’s sound and early adoption of Atlanta’s trap music suggests coming from afar but he still (mostly) raps in the language of his primary audience: German. Nevertheless, Ufo361 has shot into the outer orbits of fame, collaborating with trap legends including Quavo, Gunna, and Future. It is this blend of the foreign and the familiar that have made him an absolute star in Germany. His most recent album, Stay High, was number one in the German charts, and you can now hear trap being bumped in cars, bike repair shops, and burrito joints. And everywhere you go, it’s Ufo361’s distinctive voice that you hear most often.
