GKR

Little we knew about the local hip hop scene when we first came to Iceland. But once in Reykjavík, there was no way around. Not only had The Reykjavík Grapevine put the New Wave Of Icelandic Hip Hop on their end-of-the-year-cover and i-D listed seven Icelandic hip hop acts you should get to know, in fact everyone we talked to about the local music scene name-dropped one or another hip hop artist. And many of them rap in Icelandic! We were especially excited about one of these new voices and his track about breakfast. GKR has experienced a lot of internet buzz for “Morgunmatur” and although rapping about his daily life seems a fair enough thing to do, there’s – on a closer look – still more depth to it. It’s a coming-of-age song about figuring out what you really want to do in life, getting up for the right reasons and making the day your own. When we meet Gaukur in his studio at the docklands, we talk about winter time, darkness and depression, lacking ambitions in school and big ones in music, before visiting a rather unusual place for a live performance. But not so unusual, if you are thinking about your breakfast and doing your thing, yeah doing your thing.