Daði Freyr Pétursson known professionally as Daði Freyr or simply Daði, is an Icelandic musician living in Berlin. As the frontman of Daði & Gagnamagnið. Daði was born in Reykjavik but grew up in Denmark until the age of nine, then his family moved to Iceland and settled in the Southern Region, first in Laugaland and later in Asahreppur. Daði graduated from Fjölbrautaskóli Suðurlands (“College of the Southern Region”) in 2012 and received a BA in Music Management and Audio Production in Berlin in 2017.
In his youth, Daði practiced drums and studied piano and bass guitar. He co-founded the band RetRoBot with his friend Kristján Pálmi. Later, singer Gunnlaugur Bjarnason and guitarist Guðmundur Einar Vilbergsson, whom he had met at the South Iceland Multicultural School, joined the band. In 2012, the band RetRoBot won the Musiktilraunir (“Music Experiments”) and Daði was chosen as the best electronic musician of the year. RetRoBot released one album, Blackout, a year later.
In 2017, Daði participated in Songvakeppnin (competing to represent Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017) with the song “Is This Love?”. In performances, he was supported on stage by a group consisting of his sister Sigrún Birna Pétursdóttir (backing vocalist), wife Árný Fjóla Ásmundsdóttir (dancer), and friends Hulda Kristín Kolbrúnardóttir (backing vocalist), Stefán Hannesson (dancer), and Jóhann Sigurður Jóhannsson (dancer)—known as “Gagnamagnið”. Gagnamagnið, while translated to English as “the Data”, literally means “the amount of data”, and is the Icelandic word for “data plan”. They were characterized by their signature teal green sweaters, which have pixel art portraits of themselves printed on them. He came in second place after Svala Bjorvinsdottir, who performed the song “Paper”.
Daði took part in the 2020 Söngvakeppnin with the song “Think About Things” (the alternate Icelandic version also titled “Gagnamagnið”). As in Söngvakeppnin 2017, Daði performed with his group Gagnamagnið, now collectively credited as Daði & Gagnamagnið. They won the 2020 Söngvakeppnin competition and were set to represent Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020, but the event was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Several countries that would have participated in the 2020 contest held their own alternative competitions, broadcasting the entries and crowning a winner. Daði og Gagnamagnið won six such competitions, in Austria, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
In October 2020, it was announced that Daði & Gagnamagnið would remain as Icelandic representatives at the 2021 Song Contest. They performed the song “10 Years”, but a prerecorded performance from the second rehearsal was broadcast during both their semi-final and the final, due to a member of the group testing positive for Covid-19. Having qualified for the final, they finished fourth with 378 points. He performed a cover of Atomic Kitten’s “Whole Again” during the intermission of the 2023 competition.
