Olexesh

German rapper Olexesh addresses issues such as gambling addiction, drug use, poverty, prostitution and crime in his songs. He uses an aggressively choppy rap style to do so. Olexesh was born Oleksij Kossarew on February 25, 1988 in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. At the age of six, he moved to Germany with his mother and grew up mainly in Darmstadt. During his school years, he became interested in rap music. The artist later publishes his first music videos on social media. This brought him to the attention of the duo Celo & Abdi, who signed Olexesh to their label. His first mixtape Authentic Athletic was released there in 2012 with 30 tracks. The rapper achieved great fame through his involvement on Haftbefehl's album Blockplatin and his appearance on the online television format "Halt die Fresse". His first album Nu eta da followed in spring 2014, featuring rappers such as Karate Andi, Eko Fresh, Celo & Abdi, Fard and Gzuz. A year later, the album Masta was released, again featuring Celo & Abdi as well as Veysel and Sido. The second mixtape Straßencocktail features tracks in classic rap style and G-funk. In 2017, Olexesh was awarded the Hiphop.de Award for "Best Live Act National". With the album Rolexesh, released in March 2018, he makes it to first place in the German charts. Together with Vanessa Mai, the song "Wir 2 immer 1" was released shortly afterwards. This was followed by the albums Augen Husky (2019) and Bratan (2022), which did not quite match the success of earlier albums. Another longplayer, Matador, was released at the beginning of 2024. The album reached the top 10 in Germany at number 7, followed by Augen Husky 2 in the same year. The album enters the German charts at number 13. At the end of May 2025, Olexesh released another studio album, Olexiy Kosarev. The rapper reaches number 66 in the German charts.