Meet Popek Monster, The Polish Rapper Who Made A Burger From His Own Skin

VICE is reviving the Noisey YouTube channel, showcasing the most unique artists in the music world and investigating the movements, scenes, and stories that drive culture.

To commemorate the occasion, we’re looking back on the first episode of Noisey’s global rap series. In the mini-doc, host Chuckie travels to Poland to speak with Popek Monster, a rapper with quite the reputation.

Known as the wildest rapper on the planet—for his music, criminal history, and batshit personality—Popek quickly rose to fame after leaving his first rap crew Firma and pursuing a solo career.

“My music started because of Tupac Shakur, and when he died, I said, ‘Motherfucker, you can do the same in your language,’” Popek told VICE.

But Popek isn’t just a successful rapper. His interests include MMA fighting, ballroom dancing, fast cars, and, like many other musicians, drugs. In fact, Popek put himself in back-to-back comas lasting over a year in total from taking massive amounts of LSD.

With an intentionally scarred face and tattooed eyeballs that led to a 35 percent vision loss, Popek Monster isn’t exactly the image of purity. But don’t let his destructive ways fool you—some of his songs include deep, introspective raps about his childhood traumas and biggest regrets. This man has been through some dark and heavy times, and he tells the story well through his writing.

However, when it comes to actually speaking about his struggles, he explained that he uses humor to cope, afraid to confront his own demons.

“I have two different personalities,” Popek said. “[The one that] tells me to cut my face and stuff, that’s not me. That’s somebody inside.”

But that “somebody” does some pretty wild shit. “In my left hand, I’ve got flowers,” he said. “And in my right hand, I’ve got Kalashnikov.”

You can watch the full interview with Popek Monster below. Stay tuned for future features on the Noisey YouTube channel.

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