The progressive Tamil folk rock band 9 degrees north, the experimental Sami artist Katarina Barruk, the groundbreaking Norwegian-Gambian artist Mariama Ndure and the innovative cuatro player Fabiola Méndez are ready for Oslo Mela 2025.
This year's festival will be held August 15-17 at Rådhusplassen in Oslo. Admission to the festival is free.
About the artists:
9 degrees north
9 degrees north– A musical powerhouse
Energetic, progressive and catchy are just some of the synonyms that can be used to describe the music and concerts of 9 degrees north . The Tamil folk rock band consists of sisters Mira and Dipha Thiruchelvam, Jakob Sisselson Hamre and Jakob Sønnesyn, and together they have created a powerful and distinctive musical style inspired by, among other things, Carnatic music, baila and Tamil folk music.
In the 1980s, Mira and Dipha's parents fled the civil war in Sri Lanka, and their dedication to preserving Tamil cultural heritage has also become a driving force for the band. They have released two critically acclaimed albums; their debut album "Jaffna" and the follow-up album "Yalpanam", for which they won the Spellemann Prize in the "Open Class" category in 2023. Both titles refer to their parents' hometown in Sri Lanka: Jaffna is what the city was called after British colonization, while Yalpanam is the old, original name for the city.
9 degrees north have been concert and festival favorites all over Norway for a few years now and we are looking forward to finally seeing them on Oslo Mela's main stage.
Katarina Barruk
Katarina Barruk– Experimental pop, joik and improvisation
With an impressive voice, strong stage presence and a down-to-earth mix of experimental pop music, traditional joik and improvisation, it is fully deserved that Katarina Barruk is described as one of Sábmie's most talented artists.
Katarina Barruk sings in her native Ume Sami, a language on UNESCO's Red List of Critically Endangered Languages and currently spoken by around 100 people. With her combination of yoik, electronic tones and contemporary pop, she creates greater space for both the Ume Sami language and cultural heritage.
After her concert at Øya in 2023, she was described as "Øya's biggest revelations" by the British magazine The Line of Best Fit. Since then, she has continued to impress at everything from Iceland Airwaves, Polarjazz, Reeperbahn and WOMEX, and this summer, audiences at everything from Roskilde Festival to Oslo Mela can experience Katarina Barruk's epic music on stage.
Mariama Ndure
– Personal and groundbreaking music
With a unique expression inspired by everything from West African music, such as Madinka and Wolof traditions from Gambia, to soul, hip hop, R&B, modern jazz and improvisation, Mariama Ndure weaves together various elements from her cultural heritage.
Her musical journey is marked by growing up in Norway with two Gambian parents and her education at both Berklee College of Music and the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, and is a soulful and intuitive musical fusion where she explores her own voice and identity while honoring her ancestral roots.
In 2024, Mariama Ndure released her critically acclaimed debut album "Rituals", which Bergensavisen named one of last year's best releases, and her concert at Melahuset March 8th of this year gave us a powerful taste of what we can expect when she performs with a full band at Rådhusplassen in August.
Fabiola Mendez
Fabiola Mendez– Traditional music in a modern package
With the string instrument cuatro as her signature, Fabiola Méndez unites Puerto Rican traditional music with modern musical impulses.
Puerto Rico's national instrument, the cuatro , was originally played by the Taino, fugitive slaves and European defectors who had fled to the mountains of Puerto Rico to escape the Spanish colonialists. Here they established an agricultural community, the jíbaro, which today is an important part of Puerto Rico's identity and musical and cultural heritage. A legacy that is being carried on by a new generation of young and innovative musicians like Fabiola Méndez .
Fabiola Méndez is the first to graduate from the renowned Berklee College of Music with the cuatro as her main instrument. At her Tiny Desk concert in September 2024, she showed that the cuatro is both part of a rich Afro-Caribbean culture and an instrument that suits everything from jazz to various Latin American rhythms, and in April she again showed her infectious joy of playing when she played alongside Bad Bunny in his Tiny Desk debut.