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34 albums · 1973–2025

Music of Greenland, from Sumé and the ULO years to Nanook, Tarrak and today

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

Anda Kuitse holding the qilaat frame drum and its stick
The curved wooden front of Katuaq, the cultural centre in NuukRasmus Lyberth singing with his guitar between a violinist and an accordionist on an open-air stage
Anda Kuitse, drum dancer of Kulusuk, with the qilaat, 2010. Photo: Justen Jilsson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Katuaq, the cultural centre in Nuuk, in 2023. Photo: ThatGuyOnline, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Rasmus Lyberth with his band at the Tall Ships' Races in Aarhus, 2013. Photo: Nico-dk, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Greenland's popular music has a drum at its start, the qilaat of the drum dance, and the hymn singing of the choirs beside it, and most of its records came out of one label, ULO in Sisimiut: Sumé's Sumut of 1973, the first rock sung in Greenlandic, Rasmus Lyberth's songs, Zikaza, G-60 and Ole Kristiansen in the eighties, Nuuk Posse's rap in the nineties and Chilly Friday's rock around 2000, the Nuuk choirs MIK and Aavaat, Julie Berthelsen's pop, Nanook, Siissisoq and Small Time Giants on the stage of Katuaq, Simon Lynge, Angu Motzfeldt and Nive Nielsen with their own songs, Peter Grønvold's kalattuut on the accordion, and the rap of Prussic, Peand-eL and Tarrak. The list has 34 records from 1973 to 2025, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; Uyarakq and Da Bartali Crew are missing because their records are not on Deezer as albums, and the old drum-song recordings from Ammassalik, the church choirs beyond MIK and Aavaat, Siissisoq's first albums and much else of the ULO years that never reached streaming would each need a list of their own. About 25 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

By genre

Rock 22%Pop 15%Folk & Country 10%Other 53%
  • Rock 22%
  • Pop 15%
  • Folk & Country 10%
  • Other 53%

The genres named most: greenlandic, rock, pop, hip hop, folk, singer-songwriter.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Greenland 34. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

  • NPNuuk Posse · 1995
  • SuliUlf Fleischer · 1996

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.