Origins Percussionist
Per Cussion (of reggae-punk band
Dag Vag) and
Grandmaster Funk are generally credited with bringing hip hop to Sweden. on Mercury Records with the first contemporary R&B, rap and EDM songs in Swedish, 5 years before Just D's debut. The album came about after Fex had lived in New York in 1982 and 1983. Fex moved to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1985 and started a
Fairlight CMI rental service, thereby becoming one of the first Swedes to work with digital samplers and sequencers. The vinyl release never made it to CD and a re-master had digital release in 2025. In the summer of 1984, following a major dance competition,
Double M Crew,
Abdula & The Rockers,
Rock Ski,
Almighty T and
MC II Fresh joined together to form the hip hop collective
Ice Cold Rockers, a crew consisting of
rappers,
scratchers,
dancers and
graffiti artists.
Broadcaster D and
One Eye Que (later recording under the name Ayo) started their collaboration. Sweden, outside of Stockholm, soon became familiar with hip hop when the popular movie
Stockholmsnatt, which featured the
IC Rockers, came out.
Pop-C and
Snoopy were on the soundtrack and had a hit in 1986 with their single "Next Time". New artists followed in their tracks.
Rob'n'Raz produced the album
Competition Is None and introduced
Papa Dee's
dub and
dancehall influenced rap to the Swedes.
See-Que, from Stockholm, collaborated with the American label
Priority Records on their compilation album
Basement Flavor. The first real rap song in Swedish "Jag Är Def" came from
MC Tim in 1989. The coming generation of Swedish hip hop artists would be distinguished from the first by their inclusion of Swedish language rhymes, as opposed to the exclusive use of English rhymes by Sweden's first generation of rappers.
The second breakthrough In 1998
Petter debuted with the album
Mitt sjätte sinne, which became an enormous success and started the Swedish hip hop boom of the late 1990s. With him came an array of artists, such as
Thomas Rusiak,
DJ Sleepy and
Eye-n'-I. Other artists that achieved mainstream popularity following Petter's break include
Ken Ring and
Ayo.
Feven released her acclaimed album
Hela Vägen Ut.
Looptroop developed a middle class revolutionary style.
Timbuktu, a native of
Lund, emerged and went on to gain a reputation as one of Sweden's most popular
MCs.
21st century Swedish rappers who have achieved nationwide recognition include:
Promoe,
Snook,
Ayesha,
Fjärde Världen,
Fattaru,
Ison & Fille,
Advance Patrol,
Lazee,
Toftgard, and
Adam Tensta. Many of these artists have been exposed to a domestic hip hop culture since they were born, or very young. In a sense the Swedish scene has become less volatile, and also less vulnerable to becoming extinct. Influence from the
U.S. culture is no longer as significant;
American hip hop is still important but outside influences also come from
French,
British,
Danish, and
Japanese hip hop, and other regions around the world with vibrant and innovative music scenes. Due to
file sharing via the Internet and changing consumer markets, the number of records an artist has sold is not necessarily indicative of how popular or important that artist is. There are Swedish hip hop acts who release records for what they know is going to be an economic loss, in hope of earning their money through concerts and other ventures. The hip hop genres represented in Swedish hip hop are plentiful.
Alternative hip hop is, most likely, bigger than
Gangsta and
Hardcore combined. There are also many fusion genres such as
Neo soul,
Grime, and
Reggaeton. Swedish rap often deals with themes of
multiculturalism and positive suburban identity. Many rappers affirm their ethnic and racial background, but tend to identify more with their community and with Swedish minorities in general rather than with specific ethnic cultures, or with mainstream Swedish culture. Rapper
Adam Tensta, for instance, takes his name from the suburb of
Tensta and rhymes in his "Banging on the System": "Every burb the same man / and we got every color / we all the same man / at least to them we are / we all immigrants". 2008 is a
European Year of Intercultural Dialogue and part of this effort was a hip hop summit in
Stockholm called
Make it blast!, which took place on 27 May. Chaired by
Timbuktu, the festival featured rappers from Sweden and elsewhere in Europe and aimed to create dialogue between artists as well as audiences of the European urban music scene. ==Notable artists==