Da jeg blev spurgt, om jeg havde lyst til at interviewe Reykjavíkurdætur, var min første reaktion: “Undskyld – hvem?”. Efter en lektion i musikalsk uoplysthed af Peter fandt jeg ud af, at det var noget så unikt som et islandsk hiphop-kollektiv bestående af 22 piger i alderen 20-31 år. Tilbuddet lød altså således: Rasmus, vil du interviewe 22 islandske piger i alderen 20-31 år under årets Roskilde Festival?
Det kan jeg hurtigt afsløre, at det ville jeg satme gerne.
Det imidlertid smarte ved at være så stor en gruppe er, at man kan have forskellige interviews i gang samtidig. Derfor afholdte de fem interviews på én gang, og jeg fik derfor glæden af at snakke med – hold nu godt fast – Ásthildur Sigurðardóttir og Jóhanna Rakel Jónasdóttir (aka Junior Cheese, som hendes kunsternavn lyder). Fra nu af vil de fremgå som A og J. Så undgår jeg at brække en finger, hver gang jeg skal skrive deres navne.
Men hey! Det kom der det her interview ud af.
How does one end up with a crew of 22 rapping women?
– A: Well. Two of the girls in the group just came together and said: “We wanna rap. What are we gonna do?”. They just talked to some guy that owned a bar in Iceland, and they asked him if they could use some Tuesday nights, where nothing was going on and just come and rap. And he said yes, and the place just got full.
J: Yeah, in the end there were like 250 people in a tiny basement bar, and all the performing girls then just had something written down. We just wanted to have fun with our friends. They were not expecting this. The energy was so good there, we could just do whatever we wanted. People went “Oh my god I love this”. Before us, there were like two or three rappers in Icelandic history, so we just needed a platform for it. For the third night we made a song that was just supposed to be an advertisement for the rap night. Next day we woke up, and my mom were “Hey, congratulations on the band!”. I think you could say, that the media made us a band.
A: We just wanted to have fun. We called part of the song Reykjavíkurdætur, and that’s what the media called us.
J: Yeah, and two years later we’re at fucking Roskilde. I came here the first time when I was 17, and never had any idea I would end up performing here. People are coming up to me and saying: “Great gig”. And I’m like what am I? A rockstar? It’s so unreal.
So the purpose of Reykjavíkurdætur is just to have fun?
J: No, we wanted to make a platform with rolemodels for women, so they have a voice and can talk about whatever they want to talk about. We use the band to say whatever the fuck we want and just disguise it as music. And rap was just a convenient form of music. It’s passionate and you can get a lot of lyrics in one song, and you get to be funny and angry at the same time.
So that’s why you chose rap?
J: I don’t think we chose it.
So.. The rap chose you?
A: Yeah, hahaha.
J: I think we felt that all of rap was “Pussy, money, weed” in Iceland, so we felt we needed somebody to represent us.
A: Yeah, the girls that did it first just wanted to rap. When I saw them, I was like oh my god this is so fucking cool. I want to rap with them. I didn’t want to change the world, I just wanted to rap.
How did you learn to rap?
A: We just did it. Haha.
J: When we started we were a group and none of us actually knew how to rap, so that was a difficult period. We kind of grew up in the spotlight going from amateurs to pros really quickly. I still forget to breathe sometimes, so we are still learning. About a year ago I really sat down and listened to our stuff, and I was like: “Yep, we are actually good rappers now. It’s not just shit”.
A: Haha yeah. We become better and better everyday.
You said you chose rap, so you can say whatever the fuck you wanted. So what is it, you want to say?
J: You have to remember, we are 22. What I usually want to say is “Let’s get fucked. Let’s fuck ourselves up and have fun”. Some of us are really political, and we have a couple of songs about sexual assault. We did a song about the Slutwalk. A walk against slutshaming.
A: Slutshaming is about that you can dress however you want. You are not asking for it.
It’s so different. Sometimes you just want to rap about something that doesn’t matter. This table for an example. And sometimes you get something in your head, and you get really angry and just have to write about it and say something.
Okay.. So can you do a rap about the table?
A: Hahaha. Okay…
J: Now I’m thinking about that. Hahaha.
A: It’s a nice color. It’s a nice made table.
J: Yeah, we can do a whole album about this table. That would actually be fun.
So with 22 members. How do you coordinate on stage?
J: It kind of just happens. We divide into groups for a song, and only have a few group songs that are all of us together.
A: We organize it… A bit.
So have you ever had a moment of awkward silence on stage?
J: I think in every show theres one thing that goes wrong. It HAS to go wrong.
A: It’s never awkward. If I don’t remember I just say something.
J: I think none of our shows have been perfect, but we are really supportive on stage. There’s so much love and mutual respect on stage, and I think that also translates onto the crowd. If we fuck up, they will be okay with it. Our crowd is usually really accepting.
A: I think it’s because we are having so much fun. We are really loving it, and really giving it to the audience, so.. Yeah.
Vi siger fra Regnsky af tak til pigerne for et enormt festligt interview, der gik over i en samtale om alt fra islandsk fodbold til brugen af Tinder på festivaler, og vi glæder os til næste gang, vi får lov til at opleve Reykjavíkurdætur live!
