Beyond America: Exploring Rap Around the World
Iceland: GKR
For an island nation with a population under 400,000, Iceland’s rap scene is having a major moment right now. As FACT, i-D, and P&P have pointed out, artists like Sturla Atlas and Aron Can have been gaining a lot of attention in and outside of the country for their songwriting talents. Regardless of language barriers, Icelandic rap is becoming more of a curiosity to the world at large. Icelandic youth are pushing the movement forward, and GKR might represent the absolute best of what Iceland has to offer when it comes to hip-hop.
Talking with GKR about Iceland’s rap scene, he explained, “It’s growing, it’s big now compared to Iceland’s population.” He’s not wrong—some artists, himself included, are regularly getting hundreds of thousands of plays on YouTube. Speaking about the differences between the scene in Iceland and America, GKR said, “There are a lot of factors. It could be the community here, we are a small nation, [or] it could be because during winter it’s always dark and it’s easy to feel depressed. I can’t speak for everyone but I think for me the main difference is that I have very little to lose coming from such a small place but a lot to prove. I will always be the underdog and for me that’s a lot of motivation.”
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The language barrier, as GKR admits himself, can be a bit of an issue. “Last year P&P was listening to music submissions live on Facebook [on the show The Inbox], with Isaiah Rashad as a guest. I submitted my track ‘Tala Um’ and as they started watching it live, Isaiah and Jinx really started vibing, laughing and dancing while watching the video and then suddenly they said, ‘But I can’t understand him, so I don’t know… if it drops in the club it could be lit.’ They stopped enjoying it because it was a different language. ‘Tala Um’ should be an international banger you know.”
Talking about the language divide further, he said, “At first I didn’t think of [Icelandic] as a major component, it’s just the language I’m most fluent in so that’s what I used to express myself, but now I kind of see it as a cool part of it. One of my goals since I started was always to prove to people that I’d be able to make Icelandic rap popular outside of Iceland.”
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