Today organisers add four names who will delight music-curious Øya audience members in August. Organisers look forward to presenting the hip-hop breakthrough artist LITTLE SIMZ, the desert blues comet MDOU MOCTAR, FRED AGAIN and Turkish-Dutch act ALTIN GÜN to a large audience in a summer green and warm park.

The first mixtapes came in 2010 and 2011, and since then LITTLE SIMZ has developed into one of the important voices in British hip hop. The audience grew with the third album Gray Area in 2019, and the foundation was laid for a major breakthrough last year with the sequel Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. Not only did it enter an impressive fourth place in the UK, but interest spread across Europe. Exclaim! thought it was this year’s album, while Guardian and paste thought it deserved a place in the top five.

Also at the Øya office, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert has been one of the big favorites. LITTLE SIMZ has been on their radar since she played Øyanatt in 2015. The Line of Best Fit: -… Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is tactical, theatrical, and is the product of 100,000 hours spent honing her craft resulting in a body of work with heart, and its head firmly on its shoulders. LITTLE SIMZ has collaborated with Øya-current Gorillaz, and toured with them in 2017. Although music has been most important, she has been an actress for several years and participated in 2019 in the series Top Boy.

FRED AGAIN has one or more fingers in a lot that has happened in British music in recent years. He is a songwriter, remixer, artist and not least an award-winning producer. He has the living legend Brian Eno as his musical mentor. If you are not already well acquainted with FRED AGAIN, you may be familiar with Fred Gibson’s many collaborations. Stormzy, The xx, Brittany Howard, Ellie Goulding, Burna Boy, Roots Manuva, FKA Twigs, Stefflon Don and AJ Tracey are just some of the ones he has worked with, and several of the songs have been big hits. In addition to a number of releases with others, he has released the two digital albums Actual Life (2020) and Actual Life 2 (2021).

Mahamadou Souleymane makes music under the name MDOU MOCTAR. His early recordings were not officially released, but the audio files were distributed through audio file sharing on phones. After several albums on his own, he released Ilana (The Creator) with a full band in 2019, and has managed to further develop his desert songs. The album was very well received by music media and made a larger audience open their ears. This year he followed up with Afrique Victime, with more energetic and exotic guitar playing. The artist from Niger mixes domestic inspiration with playful psychedelic rock. Renowned media such as the New York Times, Pitchfork and The Guardian thought he had released one of 2021’s strongest albums.

ALTIN GÜN was started by Turkish and Dutch musicians in Amsterdam. Based on their own mix of psychedelic rock and Turkish folk music, they are gaining increasing attention on both sides of the Atlantic. They toured the United States with Tame Impala in 2019. As the pandemic shut down concert life, they were going to play at some of the United States’ largest and most important festivals. Now they are ready to continue the conviction of ever-increasing crowds. Øya Festival has been working to get ALTIN GÜN on the program for a couple of years, but due to the pandemic, they have never reached the goal of announcing it, until now!