Atlantica - 01.06.2001, Page 76

74 A T L A N T I C A
i-site MUSIC❍
XXX Rottweiler Hounds, the biggest hip-hop group in
Iceland, raps exclusively in Icelandic. The group counts a
floating number of five to ten members; some dance, others
stand by the turntables and some rap. Atlantica met up with
XXX Rottweiler Hounds’ two frontmen, Erpur Eyvindarson
(aka MC Blazroca) and his good friend Ágúst Bent (aka MC
Bent), and asked them a few whys, whats and hows.
What do you rap about?
Most of our lyrics are just about trying to get along in a
twisted world filled with contradictions and misunderstand-
ings. They are about everything that grabs our attention in
our environment, be it real or unreal.
What about your political opinions?
Everything is political. We have opinions about what is
around us. But it’s stupid to define these things and narrow
them down, life is all sorts and we rap about it, but we are
not what you call a political band like Public Enemy or
something like that, no.
Is it lonely to be an Icelandic rap artist?
No, it’s great! It’s great to be able to mix this classical
Icelandic thing of putting rimes together with music that we
like. Some people think that all rap music sounds the same.
The thing with rap is that it’s primarily based on the lyrics;
therefore rap music is constantly changing even though the
music might always sound the same. The rap scene here is
relatively young, though, and over the last 10 years there
have only been like two bands that released some records,
both of them writing their lyrics in English.
What about the scene in Europe and the other
Scandinavian countries?
It’s great! There is so much happening here! The stuff that
comes from England is often really good when it comes to
the music ‘cause the English have been so progressive on
the dance music scene, making all the cool beats. The
Germans are doing brilliant things, France is outstanding
and Norway has one really excellent band called Tungt Vand
(Heavy Water). In Greenland, there is one group called Nuuk
Posse. They make kind of rock-influenced hip-hop. But the
world champion of rap, compared to the number of inhabi-
tants, is Denmark. They have been doing great things for
years and some of them got really far, like Den Gale Pose
(The Mad Bag), who produced a number of tunes for F.X.
Rakim and Icecube. Yet they are still in Denmark, rapping in
Danish for the Danes.
It’s a great release to be able to express yourself in your own
language. We think in Icelandic, so we rap in Icelandic. It
wouldn’t make any sense for us to rap in English because
we aren’t English. We could just as well rap in Yiddish. Rap
is different from singing. When you are singing it can take
you five minutes to finish one letter in a word:
Looooooooooooooooove, you know. When you rap you get
your message through a lot faster and besides that – we
can’t sing! MHG
XXX Rottweiler Hounds’ debut album is out in July
from Japis Records.
We can’t sing!
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