QUARASHI
Jinx
Time Bomb Recordings
· "Bringing hip hop to the U.S. is like selling ice to people in Greenland!" – Quarashi rapper Hossi Olafsson.
· Performing at Warped Tour on Wednesday, July 17 at Race City Speedway.
Breaking the ice comes naturally to Quarashi, the funky foursome out of Reykjavik, Iceland who attribute their unusual blend of hip hop and industrial music to their isolated geographical locality. Producer-songwriter Solvi Blondal and one of Quarashi’s three rappers, Omar Swarez, met as children when their Communist parents took them along on protests against the American military base in Iceland (still a touchy topic for the band today).
Solvi and rapper Steini (Stoney) Fjelsted collided at an ice-skating park where Solvi had been sentenced to perform community service hours, and where Stoney was known for being an Icelandic skating champion. The infamous Stoney was already an accomplished graffiti artist who revitalized his hometown with his tag name, Quarashi. One of the surnames of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, Quarashi means supernatural, and when it came time to give their unique band a name, the choice was obvious. Together with lead vocalist Hossi Olafsson, the group has spun the raw material of their audio artistry into two Icelandic gold records
Although they have gained some exposure from touring with Fugees and Prodigy, and from having their single "Stick ’em Up" featured on the soundtrack to the movie Orange County, the release of their third full-length album, Jinx, marks Quarashi’s official North American debut.
Much in the spirit of London’s The Herbaliser, Quarashi laboured long in the studio to fashion a record that sounds deceptively like a live performance. Talent and technology underlie the seemingly effortless grooves and melodic fluctuations that grace Jinx from beginning to end. Nostalgic retro beats and crackling vinyl cuts alternate with three-way B-Boy raps sliding into bottom-heavy bass riffs á la Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello.
Always pushing the limits, this stellar team’s most shining accomplishment comes in the guise of an anomalous song on their new album – track five, "Tarfur," has the illustrious distinction of being the first rap song to be written and recorded in the Icelandic language.
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