Iceland review - 2016, Qupperneq 18

16 ICELAND REVIEW
I have to ask you about that: how
was it opening for Justin Bieber
at the largest concert in Icelandic
history?
It was a lot of fun, actually. We were
really well prepared and did some spe-
cial productions just for this live show.
I thought the response from the crowd
was awesome, and considering the boost
in plays and bookings after the show I
think we did a great job.
The Icelandic hip-hop scene has
grown in the last few years, gaining
mainstream audiences. You pointed
out on Twitter the other day that the
only Icelandic artists in the Top 10
on Spotify in Iceland are rap artists:
Aron Can, Emmsjé Gauti, Sturla
Atlas, GKR & XXXR. Where do you
see the scene going from here?
Well, I would say that this trend is not just
in Iceland. This is a reflection of what is
happening abroad: hip-hop has become
mainstream. It’s just that in Iceland we’re
behind, it always takes longer for trends
to reach here, but we’re really influenced
by the US. So in 2016 for hip-hop to be
popular in Iceland is not really that much
of a surprise. But also, Icelanders tend to
use Spotify a lot… probably because the
radio stations here are so bad. They also
don’t play a lot of hip-hop on the radio
here. I think Iceland could be considered
a rap producer mecca in the near future.
We have a lot of technically-gifted pro-
ducers who are already working with rap
artists abroad and I think Iceland will
have a strong beat scene in the next years.
You’ve said that you’ve received
comments that Sturla Atlas is cul-
tural appropriation. What’s your
response to such comments?
We’re definitely making music that orig-
inates in black culture and from totally
different circumstances than what we
are used to in Iceland, but at the same
time hip-hop is international [Logi later
X Q
emphasizes that the group is passionate
about hip-hop as an art form].
You were named the best-dressed
Icelandic man by a panel of judg-
es for newspaper Fréttablaðið.
Describe your style.
I lived in Berlin in 2011 with Retro
Stefson. I quickly realized that here in
Iceland, people are very much of the
mentality ‘I can’t go out in this.’ In
Berlin, I saw that people don’t seem to
think about that so much, they don’t
really care and don’t look down on them-
selves. If you think it’s cool, you wear it.
That’s my style.
Now to politics: the parliamentary
election is coming up. As a young
Icelander, what do you feel is the
most pressing issue?
Healthcare: getting rid of appointment
fees and improving mental health and
dental care. To be able to do this we
need to rethink the [fishing] quota sys-
tem [and taxation] so we can afford it.
My mother [who is from Angola] being
sick is the reason we ended up in Iceland.
We were living in Portugal and came
here for a holiday, because my father is
Icelandic. She got sick when we were
here [and it was decided that she would
get better treatment here]. People say
healthcare is free in Iceland but it can
cost hundreds of thousands of krónur per
year if you’re sick. That’s OK for some
people but for a lot of people it’s not and
then they get sicker because they can’t
afford proper treatment. Fortunately my
mother has been one of the lucky ones,
going through two successful kidney
transplants in the last 20 years. We’ve
had to go to meetings in the hospital in
recent years because my mother felt she
had to pay too much for medicine. Her
part of the cost was rising every year. The
doctors told us that some people actually
had to opt out of buying vital medi-
cine because they just couldn’t afford it.
Fortunately we could. And that is such a
grave and disgusting problem in a society
as wealthy as ours. u
We have a lot of
technically-gifted
producers who
are already
working with rap
artists abroad.
I think Iceland
will have a strong
beat scene in the
next years.