2bak I Munden består af Duni, John Svendsen og DJ Guller. John Svendsen er samtidig under navnet X-Farm producer for gruppen. De har udgivet de to plader: “29 Minutters Funk” og “DJAFF: Whap Wheefer Whespect” og optrådt over det meste af landet med deres blanding af langt ude rap-historier og hip-hop beats med klassisk New Yorker lyd. Efter 2bak I Munden havde spillet på Blå Scene, mødte de op til interview i deres lejr.
Den lå på vestsiden af Roskilde’s camping areal, så langt væk fra musikken, som man nærmest kunne komme. De stenende men tilfredse hip-hoppere sad under en halvrejst have-pavilion, omgivet af deres iglo-telte med flere tags end et gennemsnits S-tog. Mens der blev ladet op til aftenens koncerter med bl.a. Common og Erykah Badu, og drukket en øl eller tre, fandt vi tid til at lave dette live on-location interview.

When the world cup final kicked off in Japan, it was followed intensely all over Roskilde Festival. An estimated 40.000 saw it in front of the Orange Stage, but the percentage of hip-hoppers watching the game was way lower than usual. The reason for this was Malk De Koijn‘s concert on the Green stage at the exact same time. The self-proclaimed greatest group in the world has moved from making demo-tapes to being if not the biggest, then certainly among the biggest hip-hop groups in Denmark.

Saturday night Erykah Badu had left me in an state of ecstactic numbness which was still present Sunday afternoon. After kicking off the day with a smash hit of a Malk De Koijn-concert, I felt like nothing could spoil my positive mood. The crazy antics of the legendary JA toaster Eek-A-Mouse seemed like the perfect way to mellow out. Upon arrival, I found the ballroom tent to be surprisingly packed. Perhaps this was due to the many people who had waited in vain for tickets to his concert at Loppen 6 months ago. The massive turn-out didn’t faze me though, and resting my hungover bones outside the tent with a joint was fine by me.

Anti-Pop Consortium blev dannet i 1997 og består af medlemmerne M. Sayyid, Beans, High Priest og produceren Earl Blaize (et pseudonym for gruppens tre medlemmer?), og står i dag som repræsentanter for det, der i mangel af bedre, kan kaldes HipHop-musikkens ‘avantgarde’. Deres lyd tager afsæt i de tidlige 80eres synthesizer/electromusik og inddrager fermt andre, for den traditionelle HipHop fremmede musikformer. Deres MC-stil henter lige dele inspiration fra traditionel rap og spoken word poetry-slam.

Amongst Danish HipHop enthusiasts, a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the programming at Roskilde has been prevalent these last few years. This time around, headz found the last minute choice of Common as the HipHop headliner questionable due to several reasons. The obvious are that he has hit the country with three gigs in recent years and the fact that he has not had a substantial new record out since January 2000. What I suspect to be the main reason, however, has nothing to do with those kinds of logistics – people basically think Common is boring.

Like sunshine after an electrical storm, music can be a refreshing, healing experience. Like water for the mind, it can rinse out the cobwebs from the crevices of your consciousness to make you seem to see the world anew. You emerge from it rejuvenated, or as a brother from Bucktown once termed it: ‘Opin’.

Saturday nite on Roskilde 2002, mad headz were opin’d.

Zaki is the latest in the line of artists to fuse different forms of ethnic musical expression with hip-hop. In France this music is widely spread and here bands like Japaf and most successfully Outlandish have taken a stab at it. The young part Danish part Egyptian rapper hit the scene last year with the CD “Musik-Mozaik” and has done a long line of show since then, warming up for Malk De Koijn among others. His Roskilde show featured several co-rappers, a DJ and a full band.

Pelding is best known in hip-hop circles as the live-instrumentation project with Peder of the Prunes, who formerly hosted a fantastic hip-hop show with DJ Nut on P3. The Pelding sound is a mix of jazz, funk and hip-hop played live on drums and keyboard backed by DJ’s and vocalists and MC’s. They’re currently signed to Jazz Fudge, the label owned by British-Russian Vadim, whose avant garde, minimalistic hip-hop varies from boring to genius. Last year’s self-titled album by Pelding gained some critical acclaim, so as a band in a genre where Denmark doesn’t usually receive international attention the band was a natural choice for a Roskilde performance.

Nobody Beats The Beats is the brain child of DJ Typhoon and the first release on his Sonny B label. It comprises a large group of Copenhagen DJ’s and producers who contributed to a 2 disc CD compilation with instrumental hip-hop break-beat music. The content of the CD’s focuses heavily on the hip-hop producer, as if to say that they need focus just as well as rappers do. A band complete with guitar, bass, drums, horns and keys is also involved to liven up the deal, and the outcome of Nobody Beats The Beats could be described as a blend of the music played in Det Store Mix both before and after they stop playing hip-hop.

After Roskilde Festival found out P-Diddy & The Bad Boy Family had cancelled the European tour 2 months earlier, the bad press and the previous year’s lack of hip-hop content probably forced them to find replacements. One of the replacements was Denmark’s own bad boy, the Århus V banger L.O.C.As winner of the Danish Hip-Hop Award for best rapper, album and new artist, Liam O’Conner has gone from being the next big thing to an established artist in record time with regular Boogie and MTV Nordic rotation.