Isam B out with album today!

Today Isam B releases his first Danish language album since 2007. The new album “Den Heldigste Mand i Europa” (The Luckiest Man in Europe) builds on the themes he wrote about in his autobiography Fædreland (Home Country, Gyldendal, 2021). Drawing from his upbringing in Copenhagen and the western suburbs, he sings about the challenges of growing up in Denmark as the child of immigrants and the struggles that arise when your heart beats for multiple cultures. On his new album, Isam B also engages with Danish history, reaching as far back as the 19th-century song Udrundne af de gamle dage (Passed Down from the Old Days) by N. F. S. Grundtvig.

The album also features a reinterpretation of Fødelandssang (Homeland Song), originally written by the late popular author and social commentator Ebbe Kløvedal Reich and Lars Trolle (released under the band No Name in 1972). Both songs celebrate Danish cultural heritage and community. However, both in these reinterpretations and across the album’s ten brand-new original tracks, Isam B also sheds light on a frequently overlooked chapter of our shared history: the guest workers.

Isam’s parents’ generation was invited to Denmark because the country needed labor. They helped build the Denmark we know today, yet they have never truly been recognized for the historical role they played—perhaps because they were invisible to many. They were “the silent generation”, as Isam B puts it. They kept to themselves and did not engage significantly in public debates. And now, it seems as if their role in history has largely been erased from collective memory: “When I asked the secretary at the Workers’ Museum, ‘Where in your exhibition is the guest worker?’ she replied, ‘They are down in the archive’, Isam recounts, reflecting on a recent visit to the museum in Copenhagen.

Since his time in Outlandish, Isam B has written about the topics that matter to him — cultural clashes, family, and love. With renewed lyrical strength, he revisits these timeless themes from entirely new angles. Musically, Isam B also moves in a new direction on this album, with contributions from Asger Nordtorp Pedersen (Guldimund) and producer Søren Buhl Lassen (Brimheim, Lucky Lo), who have played a significant role in shaping the new sound.