Even at first glance, Norwegian Ivan Ave seems to be a special guy - if only because you can count Norwegian rappers, musicians with the goal of pursuing a professional career as a rapper of all things, on one hand. On closer inspection, one quickly realizes that behind the thirty-something hides not only for the music scene of his homeland, but also for hip-hop culture in general, a spirited outsider and creative free spirit who ignores all the laws of the genre with relish and courageously does his own thing, always following only one maxim: It must please him personally. His current album "Double Goodbyes" sounds accordingly bizarre, but ultimately only consistent: of all things, now that his years of struggle as the founder and innovator of a Norwegian hip-hop scene is also paying off commercially, he also says "goodbye" to the classic productions and stylistic characteristics of hip-hop, so to speak, in order to be accompanied by a live jazz trio at his current concerts instead. This unusual combination can be seen live on September 11 at an exclusive concert in Berlin.
Telemark, the place where Ivan Ave grew up, fulfills all the clichés of a small Norwegian town: a lush green postcard idyll somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The perfect place for stressed-out city dwellers to escape to for two weeks of deceleration, self-care and digital detox. You can hardly get any further away from urbanity and everything that is commonly called zeitgeist in Europe. Despite this idyll, Ivan Ave fell in love with the idea of making a career as a rapper at an early age, thanks to his sister's small record collection, consisting of what was so popular in 90s hip-hop and R'n'B that people even heard about it in Telemark: The Fugees, Janet Jackson and Raphael Saadiq, but also En Vogue, 2Pac and the Beastie Boys.
These records were Ivan's first - and for a long time only - introduction to this mysterious world of pop culture. And so, even as a young boy, he wrote little rhymes on a piece of paper and then said them out loud to himself hour after hour. "If you have no idea and no instructions on how to train rap skills technically, that's just the only thing you can think of," he recounted in retrospect in an interview. Barely of age, he left the idyll of his childhood and first moved to Oslo - only to make the decision that as a budding rapper he had to spend some time in New York, the birthplace of hip-hop - a kind of urban grassroots work as therapy against the inner nature boy. Back in Oslo, two things were evident: his plan to make a career as a rapper in Norway would face some hurdles. Starting with the fact that there are no structures, networks, performance opportunities and record labels, not even form of subculture for hip hop in all of Norway. What he changed without further ado himself: with friends grafitti artists, filmmakers, designers and music producers he founded Mutual Intentions, Norway's first contact point for all creative areas of the hip hop world.
For a decade he invested everything in this project and his own music - with growing success: by now Ivan Ave is considered a youth idol and role model in Norway. He has proven how to forge a successful career out of a youthful dream, while maintaining complete autonomy in both the artistic and business aspects. In addition to his own records, Mutual Intentions also releases music by other artists and frequently collaborates with internationally renowned hip-hop producers. For his latest album "Double Goodbyes," however, he has now collaborated with a completely different breed of music professionals: two jazz musicians who have since also accompanied him on concerts, thus adding a completely new, significantly unique timbre and aesthetic to rap music.