This May sees a very special concert highlighting some of Swedish hip-hop’s leading ladies being held within the beautiful walls of Dramaten. The show will be headlined by Linda Pira, and she will be accompanied by names such as Kumba, Rosh, Sep, Vanessa Falk, Rawda, Julia Spada and Joy.

“We have collaborated with Redline Recordings and really wanted to have that focus on social issues from female hiphop artists,” Helena Seth, who handles bookings at Dramaten says.

“We wanted to lift these female voices and connect this show with our spoken word series. It is a part of our ongoing project to highlight more female voices. We think it’s pretty fascinating how this new wave of Swedish hiphop has such a big female base, considering urban music is an industry that has originally been predominantly run by men.”

Also on the ever-growing list of homegrown hip-hop talent is Cleo, one of the founders of Femtastic, an inspirational collective of up-and-coming female artists in urban music who want to experiment and make a difference in the hiphop industry.

Cleo talks to us about Femtastic, this Ladies First concert, and more.

What is Femtastic all about?

Since the day I started rapping everyone would ask me, why aren’t there any female MCs? Where are the women? To me, that’s such a bizarre question to ask because there are so many women in hiphop. The real question people need to be asking is – why aren’t we seeing them?

I was lucky enough to have support when I was younger to go out there and show my music. Some young girls don’t have that. They’re sitting at home, writing these lyrics and are scared to take the next step because they don’t have that support system. That’s why Vanessa Marko and I created Femtastic – to serve as support.

We wanted these young females to have someone they could look up to and know that we always have their back. Growing up, I had a lot of guy friends because I was tired of women always being in competition with each other. We shouldn’t be competing – we should be supporting each other and being happy for other women’s success. Femtastic is a platform where these girls can step forward and be confident enough to show their talents and know that other women are behind them. We have two different aspects to Femtastic – our club nights and our music workshops and camps. The camps are basically four days where young girls in their mid-teens come and write music, record music and put on concerts.

I remember back in 2010 when Mosebacke asked Vanessa to have Femtastic do a show on a Tuesday night. We were so fucking happy because we were like wow, now we can finally showcase what women can do in hiphop. The event was amazing – we decorated with African fabric and went around in heels saying hello to everyone and showing them what we’re all about. People believe that women aren’t in hiphop and that’s absolutely not true. We’re doing everything we can to show people that.

What have you personally gained from this project?

When Femtastic first began I really felt like I had to put my career on hold to make time for these workshops. Now I’ve seen the ways in which it has actually helped my own music. I speak to these girls about feelings and emotions and learning how to release them. I still have trouble with getting all my thoughts out so even sitting with these girls and working with them on that aspect in turn helps me be more vulnerable in my music as well.

For the Ladies First show at Dramaten, what can people expect?

All the MCs that were in the remix of Linda Pira’s Knäpper mina fingrar will be together at this show and along with performing that mix, we will all be performing about four songs of our own stuff. So it’s going to be a good combination. Some of the MCs on the mix I didn’t know and I thought to myself ‘how the hell do I not know these girls?!’ But I love that I get to work with other great female artists that I haven’t before.

It’s really special for us women as a collective to be performing at Dramaten. I think the show is going to be amazing.

How does the rest of the year look for you?

Well, I just released an EP together with Kristin Amparo, produced by Broke ‘n Tipsy which has gotten a lot of beautiful reviews. We have a great tour this summer. We’re working on a lot of new material. I have a few things coming out in the beginning of May including a new track with Kristin again and there will be a lot of new collaborations.

I am also working on a campaign with Crossing Boarders called FATTA, trying to take a political stance on sexual abuse and bringing to light some of the problems that happen in sexual abuse cases in Sweden. So I’ll be working on that throughout the year too.

You can see Cleo next at Solidaritet Arena on May 2.
And Ladies First at Dramaten is on May 19.