Danyl Hoffland Madsen (born 14 August 1987) is an Ostlandic singer-songwriter, record producer, actor and businessman. Regarded one of the most important Ostlandic artists in the R&B and Hip-hop musical scene, he is known for his outstanding voice and stunning beauty. Hoffland is considered an 'icon' of Ostlandic popular music, and has released multiple singles that have lead charts around the globe, such as "I Miss You", "Bad Love", "Flawless", "Rude Hours" and "Thirst Trap".
Early Life[]
Danyl Hoffland Madsen (Russian: Даныл Хоффланд Мадсен) was born in Moscow, Russian SSR, then part of the Soviet Union, on 14 August 1987, to two Ostlandic parents resident in the country due to being employeed in the chemical industry: Richard Hoffland and Grette Madsen. Hoffland lived in Russia until 1991; Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the plant where his parents worked was shut down, which, added to the situation of economic and social crisis, led them to return to Ostland.
The family settled in Nordostat, from the both parents where from. Danyl, grew up talking in Russian and Ostlandic, although his parents didn't like on him speaking in Russian. He atended to the Saint Thomas Primary School. After concluding the primary education, he went to the Möerkdahl Gymnassium Institute until he decided to apply for the Amalie Heisk Institute of Fine Arts to develop his dance and singing skills further.
"Danya", was the nickname he got by one of his kindergarten teachers in Russia. He was known by constantly singing and performing for his family, being cheered due to his evident talent. This led him to dream of becoming a singer, and to apply for one of the most prestigious art institutes of the country. Months later, he was admitted. The insitute's staff recognized his talent and approbed his submittion immediately.
Career[]
2004: Pre-debut and underground era[]
As of 2004, Danyl Hoffland was a student of the Amalie Heisk Institute of Fine Arts. He had a part-time job at a pizza restaurant to pay for his education. While attending to the institute, he became popular due to his effortless singing talent and beautiful voice. There he met long-time friend and colleague Kadir Halversson.
Hoffland started writing and producing songs as age of 14. He started burning them on CDs and handing them everywhere in the Nordostat city, sending it to labels and media agencies, which earned him the nickname of 'Reisender sänger' (Wanderer singer).
Although positive opinions on his first demos and his popularity among the institute, his teachers told him multiple times that he had no future, reason why he left the institution. He declared "having given up on his dream", until he was contacted by a label, Skyrocket Records, who saw his potential after receiving a CD given to an employee who Hoffland met at the metro.
2005-07: Debut, first album and breaktrough[]
Danyl Hoffland in 2008. He was named one of the most beautiful faces from Ostland, and is well known as a male beauty icon within the entertainment industry.
In 2005, he was officially signed under the label. His debut single, "Rock byen" (lit. Rock the city), was released in 4 March 2005. Hoffland performed the song in multiple radios and television shows. He gained the public's attention due to his semblance. The single started becoming popular in radios as people wanted to know more about him.
After the good reception of his first single, Hoffland started working on his second single, "Smukk resa" (lit. Beautiful ride), which become an sleeper hit, climbing the radio airplay charts slowly over the weeks. He performed in multiple television shows, such as Good Morning Ostland. He was praised due to his good semblance, described as a "dream boy", which earned him a legion of devoted fans accross the country.
His next single, "Du er mig foralledei" (lit. You are mine forever), was released on 6 January 2006. It instantly became a smash hit on single charts and was played by radios about 2.8 million times in one month. After the generalized positive reception that his music had received, he announced his album "Hoffland" to be released on 5 February 2006. His album featured a variety of music genres such as progressive pop, synth-pop, and city pop. The album received positive reviews from the critics which praised its consistent production and the youthfulness of its lyrics.
His album was received with a generalized success and acclaim, toping the Ostlandic charts on its second week. It also became the first debut album by a male singer to surpass the 50,000 units sold on its second week. Hoffland continued to promote his album in different music programs across Ostland and Europe. His success got noticed by executives from Sony Music, the major company that Skyrocket Records is attached to. He was asked to start producing new music, now in English, to expand his promotions outside of Europe.
2008: Personal life, second album and International success[]
In early 2008, Hoffland was preparing for a massive second album with global promotion, focused in a Worldwide public, and a concert tour around the globe. He was also preparing a debut in the big screen by starring the action film "Indestructible" (2008), directed by Ryan Brandvold and Greta Agnes.
Hoffland was also planning to propose long-time friend and colleague Kadir Halversson, with whom he had been in a relationship since 2004, before they both debuted in the industry.
However, his world seemed to turn upside down when, on 28 April 2008, the tabloid gossip magazine OK Magazine exposed on the front page his relationship with Kadir Halversson, which was kept secret before. He was really affected as he did not want his private life to be exposed.
That week's friday, on 2 May, he scheduled a press conference, and invited all massive media companies from the country to attend, as he wanted to clarify some things about his personal life. He declared not being homosexual, and not being in a relationship with Halversson. After this, the couple broke-up, and Hoffland was constantly chased by paparazzis and Halversson's fans, who yelled insults at him for what he said in the press conference. He has cited this as the worst moment of his life.
He cancelled all of the aforementioned plans, and fell into a deep depression, where he also developed a drug and alcohol addiction. Skyrocket Records did not see this with good eyes and prepared a lawsuit against him, pressured by Sony Music, who had already invested on his international debut. This came to ears of his record producer Jan Opland, who reached him to convince him on not dropping his music promotions and concert tour. Opland was a friend from Halversson's father, Wilhem Halversson. While working with Kadir on his first album, he met Hoffland and was asked to produce his album.
Opland noticed that Danyl had letters thrown across all of his department, which he read, and saw the potential on them. Hoffland went to studio and sung, with a shaky voice, the song that would later become his worldwide hit, "I Miss You", being the lyrics extracted almost on its integrity from one of these letters. Then, Opland submitted the song to the record label and announced that Hoffland was going to release the album he had already committed to releasing.
Danyl understood that he had to comply on the album's promotions. In a record-breaking time span, he shot music videos for the singles that he chosen himself, and finished the album's production. The label was already late to release the album's first single, as Sony Music had planned this release since a year before. They were forced to release "I Miss You", expecting it to be a commercial failure due to not following Hoffland's previous sound and topic. However, the media scandal surrounding his life created a lot of expectation about he and his upcoming music, resulting on the song being a massive chart-topping success around the world.
The label noted the positive reception of the album's first release and requested for a second release. Hoffland had already recorded a music video for "My Dear, You" but the label chosen to release "Love of Mine" instead. The release of the song was set to November due to "I Miss You" still receiving a lot of attention.
In late 2008, Skyrocket Records announced Hoffland's first world tour, the Hoffland Grand World Tour, with 58 dates across the Americas, Europe and Asia. These were half of the dates that the label had originally planned for the tour. Danyl had to negotiate the tour's lenght as he believed not being able to perform the original hundred dates that where planned. His lawyer had to submit a medical report giving evidence that Danyl was going through depression. Danyl did not had medical inssurance from the label so he had to pay for his mental health support.
2009: World tour and absence from the public life[]
Hoffland performing in one of the concerts of his first world tour, the Hoffland Grand World Tour. 2009.
Danyl embarked onto his first world tour on 3 February 2009, in Rome, Italy. The tour went without any problems although Hoffland was not feeling very well. He has cited his fans as a very important support for him. However, most people did not realize that he was going through a difficult moment as he acted completely normal, and performed all the songs properly.
In the tour's last date on 5 September 2009 in Timsgroen, he announced to his fans that he would not be releasing music for a while and thanked for all the support that he had received. After that, Danyl did not sign autographs outside of his hotel nor greet hes fans as he usually did, and he was not seen outside for days, which created even more expectation about him. He was seen again on 3 December having breakfast at Starbucks, with more and more people arriving just to stare at him from outside of the store. When he left, a crowd of people and papparazzis chased him across the street, leading the police to intervene.
It also occured that on 3 January 2010, approximately at 10:00, five people rented a van with speakers and parked it in front of a building where one of Hoffland's apartment was located, to start blasting Kadir Halversson's song "Cry For Me" at max volume. This not only could have affected him, his neighbours as well. Fortunately, Danyl was in Berlin having a rest trip. The five were imprisoned due to noise pollution and finned with over a hundred thousand krones (approximately $10,000).
2010-11: Mental health and production of his second album[]
In 2010, Hoffland stayed absent from public appearances througout the year as he was still dealing with mental health issues and addictions, which he could not treat in 2009 properly due to the tour he was compulsed to do. Regardless of this, he attended to the Grammys 2010, where he was awarded with the top awards of the cremony: Album of the Year and Best Pop Album (Regrets), and Song of the Year ("I Miss You"), among others. He received the awards and gave a speech about the mental health. He looked almost completely normal, being photographed at the Red Carpet and interacting with fans, that's why no one realized that he was going through a moment of absolute depression.
At some point of his rest, allegedly in early 2010, Danyl attempted taking his life away once. A friend of him, Henrik Dahlberg, casually went to Hoffland's house to visit him. Dahlberg found Hoffland on the floor about to cut his throat. Fortunately, Hoffland got scared and thought that it was a robber who broke into his house. He confronted Dahlberg with the knife before realizing who it was. Dahlberg narrates trying desperately to comfort him struggling to get the knife out of his hands. Hoffland says that Dahlberg saved him.
After this, Dahlberg took him to a mental care unit and Hoffland resumed his mental support therapies. Despite this, Skyrocket demanded Hoffland to resume his activities and produce a third album, threatening with a lawsuit due to breach of contract. A staff member, who was recently fired by the label, leaked this information to the media, sparking public outrage over the company's bad actions. The hashtag #LammeDanylIfred (Leave Danyl Alone) became trending topic in the country for weeks and Skyrockets share's value decreased exponentially.
Anyhow, Danyl went to the studio again on July 2010, after his psychologist allowed him. He announced through his social media that his healing process was still on course but that he had came back to the studio to record some music to release when he was feeling better. He also commented feeling well and that he was receiven mental support again. This pleased his fans, who were worried about his mental health. Things started to get better from this point.
A lot of speculation about his album was rising as his absence from the industry was being noted. In only four years, Hoffland came from being "no one" to having three number-one hits in his country, four Grammy Awards and more than 15 million certified units worldwide. He discretly became an essential artist for the Ostlandic industry and people were craving for his comeback.
November 2011-2013: Comeback, "Leader" and third album Guilty[]
In mid 2010, Hoffland started the production of his third studio album as his record label demanded. These songs revolved around he overcoming his own insecurities and enhancing his self-confidence. After nearly two years of musical inactivity, Danyl Hoffland, without prior notice, dropped his come-back single "Ultimate" on 1 November 2011. He gave a performance in the same Starbucks shop he was harassed at, then walked accross the street untill reaching the stage located a 2 streets away, in Nordostat's Magnussheim Boulervard, one of the busiest streets of the city. He performed a four-songs act in a televised concert along with TV7. Earlier that day, the performance was highly advertised, with posters and videos.
Discography[]
- Main article: Danyl Hoffland discography
- Hoffland (2006)
- Regrets (2009)
- Guilty (2012)
- Stjernklär Nitt (2014)
- Blue (2016)
- Comedy Television (2019)
- Horror Hours (2023)
Concert tours[]
- Hoffland Grand World Tour (2009)
- Flawlessly Guilty World Tour (2012-2014)
- Cold Blue World Tour (2017)
- Funny Show World Tour (2019-2021)