Artist Yasin is one of Sweden’s most popular rappers with millions of gigs on Spotify. At the same time, he has links to gang crime and is previously convicted of preparation for human trafficking and for serious weapons crime. This summer he is booked at several festivals around Sweden and the interest among the fans is great. It is his first gigs in Sweden in nine years and according to the festival Bränbollsyran, the release of Yasin was their most liked picture on Instagram ever. “Do we want to give this culture an arena?” The decision to book yasin at festivals has aroused reactions. Mats Persson, Minister of Labor and Integration, has previously written a debate article and remains critical to giving rappers in the gang environment a platform. – We live in a society where the violence is on everyone’s lips. We do everything we can to push back the criminal gangs. Then we know that there is a connection to this gangster culture. They describe themselves in their songs and music how they practice violence, they glorify the violence. They murder each other. In this situation, all good forces in society need to ask the question: do we want to give this culture an arena? Culture and interest is a great freelance journalist and author Emil Arvidson, who has been monitoring Swedish hip hop for 25 years, highlights a different view: – All attempts to shut out the gangster stairs make it only bigger in darker filter bubbles. I meet young fans who want to talk about it, but stigmatization makes it difficult. He points out that culture and interest is one of the largest among younger people in Sweden. – It grows on completely different platforms than those we often discuss and want to regulate. I don’t think it’s so important to these artists or their fans what TV4 thinks, or what I or politicians think. We may not be able to believe that we should just clean this up and that it will be good. We have seen that it does not happen. – I don’t think we are making any great efforts against the gang crime whether Yasin plays on the fireball acid or not, he concludes.
t4-general