Bettina Filips’s first EP, “Das Leben tarnt sich nur als Schnitzeljagd” (2020), didn’t just make headlines in her native country Austria: The rapper’s jazz-infused conscious hip-hop was also so well received in Germany that some journals recognised it as a promise of potential peace of mind and gave it top marks. And rightly so, because what Filips later celebrated as Spilif on her debut album, “irgendetwas das du liebst”, is nothing less than the reincarnation of German rap in its original form – when it became great. It’s no wonder that some people see hints of the really big names of German hip-hop in Spilif’s wonderfully double-sided bars, her harmonically and instrumentally sophisticated beats, and her confident delivery: Torch, Dendemann, and Mädness, to name but a few. She has already been recognised as a word-acrobat and a “retro goddess”, while elsewhere, she is being treated as the discovery of the year. She certainly has reason enough to boast, but Spilif keeps her feet on the ground: “My biggest flex is my basic satisfaction”. That’s right.