Music
Hip-hop – the new generation of pop
Swedish hip-hop is, as always, in the process of changing. But now the breakthroughs of the youngest rappers are giving us a taste of what is to come in the pop genre as well – and we mean Hasan Ramic
As I write, I am doing my second school-based teacher education course (verksamhetsförlagd utbildning) at a primary school. Yesterday in Swedish class, I was interrogated by enthusiastic fifth graders about whether I met Einár during my past career as a music journalist. Several of them bragged that they know all the lyrics to Einár’s previous mega hit “Katten i trakten” (the Cat in the Hood), and soon the class ended up being more about Einár than the source criticism exercise the students were supposed to be doing.
16-year old Nils "Einár” Grönberg’s latest single release, "Rör mig" (Touch Me), is closing in on a million streams on Spotify, and although there is no official music video for the song, YouTube is already overflowing with pirated versions, reaction videos and lyric videos generating hundreds of thousands of views. At the moment, it is less than a week old. There’s no historical precedent for an obscure 16-year old placed in child protective services (LVU) managing to obtain such a solid grip on Swedish popular culture as Einár has – without any help at all from the conventional record company machinery.
He's the latest in a series of young Swedish rappers that got famous using social media, mainly YouTube, where very young artists communicate directly with their audience. If you're looking for the starting point of a trend, Byn Block Entertainment’s Yasin and Jaffar are the protagonists of the new Swedish hip-hop movement. Their freestyle videos and leaked songs they uploaded directly to YouTube around 2014–2015 became extremely popular, especially with a younger audience. This method not only resulted in a new communication pattern between artist and audience but also the exclusion of an older generation of gatekeepers from the entire creative chain.
Previously, before recording equipment and the ability to upload your music to the Internet was so readily available, young artists were dependent on an older generation who owned the infrastructure. And that's not all, hip-hop in Sweden has traditionally been something a younger generation "inherits" from an older generation – strictly in terms of cultural consumption. Figureheads such as Tupac and Biggie, and ideas about how “good hip-hop” sounds and is performed, have previously come from above, but this has largely been swept away during the period of democratization in the 2010s. Swedish hip-hop ultimately became a culture by young people for young people – with all the advantages and disadvantages this entails.
Antwan
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The new generation of hip-hop music, especially when coming from a severely disadvantaged group in socioeconomic terms, has ended up mostly portraying a harsh reality where drugs and violence are consistent themes. The short-sighted critic may see this as moral decay, but taking a closer look at the Swedish social climate at large reveals that the brutality of hip-hop has a direct correlation with the brutality of the surrounding environment. Sweden is currently undergoing a revolutionary neoliberal project that has put a wedge between the classes of Swedish society in a way previously unknown in modern history. Housing segregation is increasingly pronounced, especially in large Swedish cities where the new Swedish hip-hop finds its most fertile soil, not to mention that Sweden has had a large parliamentary party with clear Nazi roots for the last eight years. These factors, combined with drugs such as benzodiazepines and prescription opioids flooding the streets and a rapid increase in firearm imports since the opening of the Öresund Bridge, will inevitably be reflected culturally.
However, the new generation of Swedish hip-hop is not a dark swamp of extremely violent youth who couldn’t care less about their own well-being and that of others. It has served as a way out for many young people who have been stuck on destructive paths in life. However, it is also a forum for the most interesting creative development in Swedish music in a long time, which is comparable to the previous explosions of youthful creativity in Sweden: such as the Umeå hardcore scene in the 90s and the early 2000s indie mainly in Gothenburg.
Husby rapper Adel has made a name for himself with hits like “Skina” (Shine) and “Spring” (Run), which he and his producer Simon Superti call “gangsta pop”. His latest album, "5 Stjärnor” (5 Stars), mixes Euro Diasporic hip-hop sounds with American style rap and in the middle of it all is "Tony & Elvira" – a bubbling pop song that I’d call "Thugged out ‘Lush Life’". A close partner of his, Dree Low, is also trending, with his new project "No hasta mañana 2” where his unique musical language is a real hit. Dree Low is the closest we have come to a Swedish Max B – an inimitable trendsetter that makes music by and for the people. A figure who does not shy away from mixing large doses of self-revealing humor in with his dead seriousness.
Dree Low
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Meanwhile, 80 kilometers east of Husby, we find Ant Wan and Ricky Rich in Västerås. They are the same on paper but completely disparate figures in the new generation of Swedish pop. Ricky Rich’s borrowing of elements of Dabke and Halay from the Middle East has given him enormous success among the younger generation. He’s like a mix of Kurd-Turkish singer Ibrahim Talises and 50 Cent. On the other hand, Ant Wan is directly influenced by the American spearhead of melodious contemporary rap and fills his music with a major dose of true Nordic melancholy while grappling with street life, promiscuous sex, materialism and anxiety about all of the above. Ant Wan is a particularly interesting figure considering the discourse around him. He is incredibly polarizing, and what’s said about him is reminiscent of what was said about Young Thug when he first emerged. He also has a fandom that is as dedicated and fanatical as Håkan Hellström’s sailors, or more like Broder Daniel’s pandas.
In other words, the latest Swedish hip-hop not only serves as a litmus test of our Sweden as a society, but also hints at the direction in which Swedish pop music is heading. Therefore, it’s important to talk about artists like Z.E, Ant Wan, Adel and Ricky Rich in the same breath as Broder Daniel, Kent, Håkan Hellström and Refused.
It’s time for YEAR0001 + RIFT on June 7 at Obaren. Over the years, YEAR0001 has impressed us with its progressive roster of artists and releases. YEAR0001 + RIFT is an evening featuring both new and well-known artists like Thaiboy Digital, Toxe, Ecco2K, Femi, Quiltland and more. With club nights in London, Berlin and New York, this will be the first time their audio-visual club concept is taken to Stockholm, with a line-up consisting of some of Sweden's most promising producers and artists. Check out the free event here.
