Reykjavíkurdætur - Iceland's 15 Member All-Female Hip-Hop Crew

https://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/64y87j/reykjavkurdtur-interview-2016

While Icelandic culture has historically been defined by its ancient clan societies and, in more recent times, thriving rap game (brought to the fore in 2001 when XXX Rottweiler released the first Icelandic-language hip-hop album) the notion of an all-female, all-feminist rap clan is about as alien to this tiny 328,000-people dwelling island as the idea of joining the EU. Because, as depressing as it sounds, even for an outward-looking country with musical roots in anarcho-punk and an erstwhile mayor with a Crass tattoo, up until 2012 Iceland had only ever nurtured one female rapper, Cell 7, who disappeared shortly after her arrival on the scene in 1998, only to make a comeback and release her debut album in 2013.

That same year, an aspiring emcee called Nadia, along with two other hip-hop enthusiasts - who would later become members of Reykjavíkurdætur – created Reykjavik’s first ever women’s rap night. Nadia agreed to let out the basement bar of the club she was working at, with a stage for female emcees to bring their poems and scribbles to life over beats, and they invited about 30 guests, with hundreds actually turning up. Over the next few fortnights, 14 girls repeatedly stepped up to the mic and soon decided to record a promo track together called Reykjavíkurdætur - and so, the collective was born.

“It was something that just had to happen,” declares Salka Valsdóttir over a Skype call from Reykjavik. “We were entering a completely male dominated scene - there was no space for us so we had to create it completely for ourselves. When we started it was like we were taking toys from grown men and playing with them because all the men were like, ‘What are you doing, we’ve had these toys for many many years so this is not something you can do!’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoIkWEqeke0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9OR6ZTGlek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa4KfCHtrDI

ha fantastic, thanks for that

I doubted at first that Icelandic would be a good language for rapping but this actually sounds very cool.

I've come around to the idea that all languages are good for rapping. And yeah, this is pretty cool.