Hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, music act Outlandish is a group of three individuals who came together for the love of hip-hop. Their beginnings started when they met in Copenhagen, according to group member Ali Qadri, who says they listened to a lot of hip hop, watched breakdancing, and graffiti.
‘That’s how we fell in love in hip-hop, real inspired from the whole scene in the late 90’s and mid 90’s as well,’ says Qadri of the group’s inspiration for getting involved with the culture. ‘And like many other kids listening to hip hop when it became more of a cult thing, it wasn’t mainstream in Europe or Denmark back in the late 90s it was more of an underground thing. Listening to it we got inspired, and we wanted to be creative as well and we could somehow relate to what was going on over [in America].’
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With each member coming from a different ethnic backgrounds, the group has a unique sound. Outlandish member Waqas Ali Qadri spoke on the group’s sound, stating the group ‘used a lot of samples, Arabic samples, Pakistani samples, Indian samples.’
Although they had their method of creating music set, they had to go about it a different way due to the recession.
‘Because of the recession and the record companies feel that as well, they cut your budgets so we had to go a different path,’ says Qadri. ‘That was inspirational as well, to make the same kind of tracks and the same sounds just with live instruments.’
But the economic times of the world hasn’t slowed Outlandish down. They released their latest album, Sounds of Rebel, in May ’09 in Denmark and digitally in the US shortly after. Qadri describes the new album’s sound as ‘quite energetic, live and hype’ with the members pulling inspiration from their ethical influences, having Indian flutes, Latin American instruments and bongos, and Arabic strings.
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In regards to where the group draws inspiration from, Qadri has a quite extensive explanation:
‘Creativity comes from all over. At the beginning I hated rock, I hated techno, I hated dance, it was always hip-hop. Of course that was the main inspiration back then, but as you get older and the more aware you become of different genres from all over the world, you feel inspired by. We could listen to a Coldplay record and get inspired by that. We could listen to a John Legend track and be inspired by that. You know Sade, whoever. But of course there are some main artists who have been the main inspiration for us throughout our career. Without a doubt its artists like the Fugees, Outkast.’
As Outlandish grows in popularity the opportunity for them to collaborate with established artists will inrease. When asked about who they want to work with, Qadri had a few artists in mind:
‘One of the persons we always wanted to collaborate with was Sade, because she’s jus a magnificent beautiful woman with a powerful voice and when she sings you listen so that’s always been an inspiration. Someone that’s a bit more approachable, a person like Mos Def, when it comes to lyrical content and flows and taking things in new directions he’s a great inspiration so he’d be a person we’d love to collaborate with. And like is Said, Andre 3000 that wo
