Isam B ready with new song that hails the work of immigrants

Isam B is now out with the song “Acetone” from his upcoming album, set to be released in early 2025. The album is a cohesive collage of grand and organic alt-pop melodies, tied together by realistic stories about family history, Danish history, and particularly the relationship between father and son. With this new album, Isam B creates an emotional portrait of family, origins, rebellion, and the journey of forgiveness and finding peace later in life. The album is a musical extension of Isam B’s autobiography Fædreland (Fatherland), which was published in 2021 by Gyldendal.

The songs reflect on cultural differences, growing up in the western suburbs of Copenhagen in the ’80s and ’90s, the life conditions of so called “guest workers” fro abroad, and how summer trips to Morocco were an important part of family life. The new single “Acetone” opens a window into both Isam’s own family history and Denmark’s history. It is a tribute to the invisible citizens of our society, those who feel forgotten — and those who historically lived in the shadow of a prosperous country: the immigrants.

“I think of my parents’ generation as those who helped build the country, but who found meaning in living in the shadows, in the basement, and in the industrial district”, says Isam B. Despite the fact that, for the first time in the country’s history, so many new people arrived in such a short period, the collective memory of them has been minimized. “When I asked the secretary at the Workers’ Museum, ‘Where in your exhibit are the guest workers?’ she replied, ‘They’re down in the archives”, Isam B says, recounting the inspiration behind “Acetone”. “It was the quiet generation. My father belongs to the generation that doesn’t like to take the stage and be in the spotlight”, he continues.

“Acetone” and the songs on the album are about what home and family mean and about looking back on one’s origins in the context of a complex Danish history from the 1970s onward. People with different languages, backgrounds, and deep longings had to coexist.