Overflowing With Talented People: Alaska1867 And digital ísland On Hard-Won Success

Four Grapevine Music Awards winners take the pulse of the scene

Piling into Prikið’s backstage loft, Alaska1867 (Kolfreyja Sól Bogadóttir) — simply Alaska to her friends — and the trio forming digital ísland (Arnar Ingi Ingason, Tatjana Dís Aldísar Razoumeenko, Þórir Már Davíðsson) exchange hugs, discuss set lists, joke, and plan upcoming studio sessions. As they all settle onto the couch, it’s just past 23:00 on Saturday night. The floor begins to quake as, downstairs, Tæson heats up the crowd. In two hours, we’ll all — Alaska, digital ísland, their plus-ones, myself, and my publisher — be led through a throng of sweaty 20-somethings up onto the Prikið stage — which is just a table of one of their coveted front-window booths. But, before all that, I’m here to hear from some of our Grapevine Music Award winners about their successful past year, their take on the current scene, and what it’s like to be a musician in Iceland right now.

Artist Of The Year: Alaska1867

“Alaska is fresh, honest, and sexy,” Tatjana says. “Alaska is the brightest hope of Icelandic urban music,” Þórir declares, employing a catch-all descriptor often used to blur the lines between pop and rap — Alaska herself blends together sounds from hyperpop, drain, rap, trap, electronic, house, and more in her tracks. “Alaska is the shit,” Arnar adds, excitedly.

At the beginning of this year, unless you were deep into the rap scene, you probably hadn’t heard of Alaska1867; by the end of it, we had heard her songs on the radio all summer, seen her name on every big lineup the country has (namely Iceland Airwaves, Innipúkinn, Þjóðhátíð), and listened to her singles collaborating the biggest names in Icelandic rap (Aron Can, Birnir, Joey Christ).

Unanimously voted our Artist Of The Year, this was Alaska’s year (we could’ve just called it 1867). Despite the usual fallacy that something just ‘clicks’ before a big success — along with a lot of luck — Alaska’s accomplishments this year were not a series of accidents.

“I wasn’t 100 percent locked in when I was making music before, and now it was just: either I’m gonna do it 100 percent or I’m not gonna do it. It was like, ‘Will I lose my opportunity?’ If I have an opportunity in my hands, I won’t be, after 20 years, still talking about ‘this one song that was really good and everybody loved,’ like, drinking at Dillon or something. I know people like that, who just lost their momentum,” Alaska shares.

She focused, working every day to finish her debut mixtape, 222. Alaska explains that there were only two options: succeed, or burn out trying.
“If I’m locked into something, I’ll do it 100 percent.”

Alaska remembers her dad looking out for her. “He said, ‘Don’t you want to have a plan B?’ He wanted to believe in me so bad, but if your child says, ‘I’m gonna be really famous!’ you’re gonna be worried.”

Despite the mild cautioning, Alaska wasn’t deterred. “If I’m locked into something, I’ll do it 100 percent,” she says. 222 quickly gained traction after its release in February, with many gravitating towards the gritty honesty in her tracks. Despite comparisons of her success to 2017’s rap boom, Alaska strikes a new and refreshing tone. With 222, Alaska invokes personal experiences, both as a female rapper in Reykjavík’s male-dominated hip-hop scene and past struggles with drug use, to forge a unique balance between sharpness and candour.

As the scene quickly took notice, she followed 222’s success with a rush of singles that rolled out into the summer. “I just took every opportunity I could,” she laughs. “And it worked!”

So, how is her dad feeling now? “Proud, he’s so proud! It’s really cute.”

Song Of The Year: “eh plan?” by digital ísland

digital ísland is somewhat of a supertrio: Tatjana is well-known for fronting the electronic trio ex.girls, along with her solo techno work; Arnar works extensively as a producer in Iceland under the moniker Young Nazareth (notably, he’s a frequent collaborator of Alaska1867’s); Þórir, under the name mistersir, is a lauded producer who saw big success in Germany before he moved back to Iceland recently. “We all have such different backgrounds in music, and, when you bring that together, it luckily harmonised,” Þórir explains of digital ísland’s origin story.

“Everything was telling us not to,” Arnar laughs, describing the group’s formation — Tatjana later adds that the group’s astrological signs are as incompatible as you can get. “I feel like, still, everything is telling us not to make music, that the universe is trying to hold us down. Like, we’re never at the same spot. This is a rare occurrence,” Þórir adds.

Despite everything, digital ísland has grabbed attention, and fast. It’ll be one year this February since debuting their project; to date, digital ísland has only released three singles. And yet, two of digital ísland’s songs came up in our Song Of The Year conversation. They’re just that good.
“It’s catching eyes, this project and this band because it’s so unique in Iceland. It hasn’t been done before.”

After ruminating on which song to pick, the panel decided that their second release — ”eh plan?” — should take home the prize. It’s a three-minute-long earworm, a bubbly, poppy song with outstanding production, a tipsy dance-floor hit. The lyrics are fresh and catchy; the song begins with “Ég elska hlaupa, lyfta, skrolla síma / Ég elska keyra um” (“I love to run, lift, scroll a phone / I love to drive around”). Tatjana takes a phone call over autotune around the two-minute mark to make plans for the evening (hence the title, “eh plan?,” shorthand for “any plans?”). In the music video — which, of course, features both Alaska and Prikið — the trio drives around Reykjavík. Tatjana smokes a cigarette standing through the moonroof. They get gas, pick up friends. It’s a portrait of a cool kid’s day in Reykjavík.

“It’s catching eyes, this project and this band, because it’s so unique in Iceland. It hasn’t been done before, this PC-dance-music,” Alaska explains of her couch-mates.

Compared to each member’s other work — whether it be lyricless techno or production on gritty rap — digital ísland is a departure. In Tatjana’s description, it’s more like a vacation. She explains that the project is a chance to allow herself “to be cliché.”

“I think that’s the essence of this group,” Arnar says. “Just to let go of trying to be clever or [having] a deeper meaning,” Tatjana adds, “just simple and fun.”

“digital ísland was my introduction to pop music. I never thought of the structure of pop music before,” Tatjana explains. “Even though it’s not pop, really. It’s funny — Arnar says sometimes, ‘This is not accessible enough.’ And I’m like, ‘This is the most accessible thing I can imagine.’ Like, if this is not accessible to you, that’s really your problem.”

Talkin’ ‘bout my generation

The four definitely lean into a noughties vibe in some of their work: digital ísland’s name is a nostalgic reference to a cable descrambler. They’ve used a late-night infomercial aesthetic in a series of videos. Alaska has a song named “SMS,” the cover of which has her donning headphones, music notes swirling around her — it looks like she could be Britney Spears or Kelly Clarkson. Everyone’s made grainy camcorder-esque videos.

But, despite the Y2K aesthetics, Alaska1867 and digital ísland are, at their core, artists of today’s generation.

Sure, one of Alaska’s most-streamed songs is her April single “ChatGPT;” digital ísland announced their project through Instagram and TikTok videos; they throw around words like “manifesting” and “type shit” throughout the conversation. But savvy usage of technology and modern slang aren’t the point. digital ísland and Alaska are immediately realistic and articulate about the music scene — its constraints and advantages — as it stands in Reykjavík today. And, maybe most importantly, they’re speaking to and resonating with this generation.

The scene, today

“I feel like the scene in general is good right now,” Arnar states. “We’re in a renaissance, but we have such a lack of concert spaces…You can’t do anything under 300 [capacity]. I think that’s what’s missing most from the scene: a venue that you can do a small capacity gig and also not be afraid of it losing money. It’s only, like, here, at Prikið…” he trails off.

“That’s it,” Alaska punctuates.

“We’re not lacking talent. We’re overflowing with talented people,” Tatjana emphasises.
“You have to completely sell out and just give the people what they want. It just sucks so much ass.”

Tatjana comes in with perspective from the techno/electronic scene, sharing, “There’s the techno scene — which is non-existent, homeless — but still so many talented people doing crazy shit. But there’s no platform for it.”

Arnar deadpans, “It’s pretty ironic to be making electronic music in a country without a club.”

“When it comes to electronic music, I think you just need to move out of the country,” Tatjana says. She admits that she’s always dreamed of focusing on non-vocal music, but had to be realistic. “It won’t go far here because we don’t have any venues for it,” she says. “Maybe I can just do that in my 40s. Because I have to make a living [now], you know.”

Arnar continues, “It’s almost like, to have a successful — in terms of living a comfortable life — career, you have to completely sell out and just give the people what they want. It just sucks so much ass.”

“And maybe have Christmas shows,” Alaska adds.

“No disrespect to the people that do, I respect the hustle 100 percent. But it’s not for everybody,” Arnar concludes.

The scene in Iceland

As they ponder how to straddle the line between creative independence and financial viability, they consistently compare music-economy politics in Iceland with the rest of the world.

“If you make good shit, you’re gonna get noticed easier,” Alaska says of Iceland. “If you’re in the U.S., you have to really claw there to get attention and do, like, weird TikToks and stuff.”
“It’s pretty ironic to be making electronic music in a country without a club.”

On the other hand, she also notes, “the disadvantages we have: it’s hard to make money in Iceland creating music. Because we’re so few, you can’t hold these huge raves. You just can’t do it. There’s not enough people.”

“The dream of being a big star in Iceland is very small — you won’t reach high, but it’s very accessible,” Þórir says. “But not as accessible as people might think,” Tatjana volleys.

Then, quickly, they return to the positives of Iceland. “Personally, I think it’s really fun that we can play here, with people just coming here for free,” Arnar says. “It’s like an ecosystem that shouldn’t exist,” Þórir concludes.

The vision

They all note the necessity of having a committed vibe — a vision — as a throughline for your project. As Alaska explains the appeal behind digital ísland, she says, “It has a specific vision, everything about the name of the band and all the visuals. It’s a whole thing. Because if you have a vision for something, and it all talks together, then it makes it easy for people to understand it.”

Later, as Tatjana is talking about the group’s successful year, she starts to say she “was also very lucky, like…” but Alaska jumps in to counter, “I don’t think you were lucky, though. I think you discredit yourself.” Alaska continues, “Everything about you, it’s really good. It’s not just the music — it’s the image also.” “You got the vision, bro,” Arnar adds.

I’m reminded of a lyric from Alaska’s “Mellusport,” where she raps: “tvö augu með puttann á púlsinum” (“two eyes with their finger on the pulse”). One thing that shines through while talking to these four artists: so much of what they do is done with intention. It could all look effortless to the naked eye, but their moves are precise, calculated. Alaska says, of releasing more music with the momentum of 222, “You have to play it right — of course, you have to do that.”

A huge opportunity

As the group reflects on what differentiates Alaska as a musician, Arnar immediately states, “We haven’t had this perspective in Icelandic rap before.”

“I make music about my perspective,” Alaska states simply. “I don’t hide anything [in] my music, and I have some lines in my songs from a female’s perspective,” she shares, contrasting herself with “the guys who rap about ‘fucking bitches and getting money.’” She shares that she often chooses to “say things that are controversial,” while switching the traditional gender roles of rap. In her “Mellusport,” for one, she raps, “I want an abuser that’s good to me / That’s good at loving, that has a good dick.”
“We’re not lacking talent. We’re overflowing with talented people.”

“Back in my day, girls didn’t make music,” Tatjana adds. She’s five years Alaska’s senior. “It’s way more accessible, like on TikTok these days. But in my day, it was like, ‘I really want to put out music, how do I start?’”

“I think it’s all about the way you see things,” Alaska states. “Because I could look at something and be like, ‘Oh, everything sucks. Everything’s so bad for me, and me and Tatjana are the only girls doing stuff.’ But you can also look at it as a huge opportunity, and a huge opportunity for so many girls.”

She continues, “I was judging this high school rap competition (Rímnaflæði), and there was this girl competing, such a cool girl. And she said she started because she saw me doing this, and she was like, ‘Oh, this is so cool. I want to do this.’”

“I remember Alvia [Islandia] was the only one who was doing authentic rap music,” Alaska notes of her early role model. “It’s just scary. And, if I didn’t have Alvia, I probably would have been like, ‘Shit. This is cooked.’”

“I’m excited to see because it’s really odd that there aren’t more girls. But I think they’re on the way. They must be,” Tatjana adds.

On stage

And, as Tatjana was saying that, a new generation of girls in rap were on the way — to the concert at Prikið. Throughout Alaska and Tatjana’s time on the table top, the first four rows were almost all just early-20s girls, singing and rapping along to every word.

As always at Prikið, the crowd packed into the bar was a well-distributed slice of Reykjavík, a smattering of the sub-scenes we’ve spent the year reporting on: Kraumur Award winners, visual artists, girls in Takk Takk tank tops, DJs with leanings towards all genres.

Throughout both Alaska and digital ísland’s sets, the artists (and even their plus ones) sang along to each other’s unreleased work — proving how commonplace it is that works-in-progress are not drafts to hide away, but to be shared and worked on together.

As digital ísland worked towards the end of the night, in an only-in-Reykjavík, only-in-this-scene twist, famed rapper and musician behind our Album Of The Year, Birnir, shuffled to the stage, hood up, ready to perform his and Tatjana’s recent hit “Efsta hæð.” As the crowd cheered, Birnir leaned towards Alaska. “SOS?” he asked, seeing if she’d want to perform their song together, and it was settled.

It almost looks pre-planned: our top category winners — Artist Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year — atop a Prikið table together on a Saturday night at 02:00. But that’s just how the scene is at this moment in time: excited to create, ready to collaborate, and hungry to perform.

You can find the rest of the winners of the Grapevine Music Awards here.