Icelandic hip hop

From ‘Selling American Fish to Icelanders’ to Reykjavíkurdætur (Reykjavík Daughters)

Authors

  • Tony Mitchell University of Technology, Sydney

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.v2i2.25724

Keywords:

Iceland, rap, hip hop, rímur, language and identity

Abstract

This article presents a history of rap and hip hop in Iceland from its beginnings in English language hip hop in the mid 1990s to the present day. From beginnings which imitated US rap in English, to a growing concern with Icelandic subjects in the late 1990s, to a “boom year” in Icelandic language hip hop in 2002, when it became completely indigenized, and was influenced by the native genre of rímur, a ritual form of versification with roots back into medieval times, it has undergone a dramatic feminization with the emergence of Reykjavíkurdætur (Reykjavík Daughters), a 22-member female collective which made its presence strongly felt in 2014.

Author Biography

  • Tony Mitchell, University of Technology, Sydney

    Tony Mitchell is honorary research associate at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is the author of Popular Music and Local Identity: Pop, Rock and Rap in Europe and Oceania (University of Leicester Press 1996) and the editor of Global Noise: Rap and Hip hop outside the USA (Wesleyan University Press 2001). He co-edited Home, Land and Sea: Situating Popular Music in Aotearoa New Zealand (Pearson Education 2011).

References

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Published

2015-11-05

Issue

Section

Global Hip Hop

How to Cite

Mitchell, T. (2015). Icelandic hip hop: From ‘Selling American Fish to Icelanders’ to Reykjavíkurdætur (Reykjavík Daughters). Journal of World Popular Music, 2(2), 240-261. https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.v2i2.25724