New Video: Daughters Of Reykjavík “Thirsty Hoes”

Feminist hip-hop group Daughters Of Reykjavík have released a new single called “Thirsty Hoes”. The female rap collective has been relatively quiet recently, releasing one other single this year, and only one single last year. Their most recent album release was in 2018.

However, on May 1st, they hopped on the Zoom meme bandwagon with a brilliant music video featuring all nine current Daughters of Reykjavík and a few surprise guests, which proves that it is possible to stay true to your ho roots while social distancing.

“So the song has been ready for over a year,” Blær, who directed the video, told the Grapevine. “We made it a long time ago and I think it was even supposed to be on our last album. We talk a lot about shrimps in this song (our last album was called ‘Shrimpcocktail’) and for a long time that was supposed to be the title for the song as well.”

The group plans on releasing a new album on May 29th and wanted to have a new music video for it, but due to COVID-19, couldn’t come together to make it. “So we decided to make one anyway, just us on a video call getting crazy over the isolation. I directed it and I knew I also wanted to play with the form a little bit, having things going from one frame to another. Also what I really love about this video is all the easter eggs. You have to watch a lot of times to catch everything. If you spot the half naked Gigolo in my frame, you might not spot Steiney a few frames to the left, dancing with no pants on.”

There is a lot going on in this video, so much so that it’s probably impossible to unpack everything in one take. Let’s try anyway.

The video opens with Karítas in a Zoom meeting, clad in pajamas, wearing headphones and holding a turntable on her shoulder. She pushes a button and the music meeting begins. Her coworkers join her one by one, some in pajamas, some fully dressed, and one naked, who hurries off screen to throw on a nightshirt.

It is at this moment that I wish my Icelandic was better, because Steinunn starts rapping, and it sounds really good, but I have no idea what she’s saying. Soon they all raise their glasses and take a drink (some take more than one).

The single continues in this way, and I gotta be honest, it truly is impossible to break everything down in one take. Lipstick gets passed around, kids crash the meeting, other special guests go from one screen to another, somebody has a dog, it’s absolute chaos. You just have to watch the video yourself, multiple times. It is impressive, hilarious, and a lot of fun.

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