After first gaining exposure as gangster rappers Kartellen has become the voice of suburban Stockholm, more concerned about shedding light on the social problems and inequalities of our society.
Much has happened since I wrote the first articles about Kartellen five years ago, which focused on the fact that Kartellen were Sweden’s first gangster rappers. In the United States reality rap has been an established genre since the 1980s, but in Sweden it was – and is – still relatively new, and my articles seemed to offend people. The articles and the band were the subject of editorials, of earnest discussions on radio and TV, and their performances were stopped by the police. I defended my articles – “don’t shoot the messenger, in five years Kartellen will have the same cultural status as punk rockers Ebba Grön have for your generation,” I said on TV.
I was right, and yet wrong – it took less than that. Last year the play Medans vi faller, based on Sebbe Stakset’s life, was performed at Stadsteatern to glowing reviews, among them from Kulturnyheterna on SVT. Their last album Ånger och kamp went gold within days, was Grammy-nominated and received 35 million listens on Spotify, to go alongside the 40 million views they have clocked up on Youtube. The book Spelet är spelet that the band’s founder Leo Carmona co-authored with me will be released next year and the film rights have already been sold. This month Kartellen will release their new album Ånger och kamp 2. Leo Carmona, aka Kinesen (The Chinese) calls me up from the prison in Finland where he is serving a long sentence for contracting to kill someone. We talk about Kartellen going in a new direction. The gangster romance is gone – instead the new album, like its predecessor, is about the consequences of abuse, thug life and imprisonment.
“I do not classify our old songs as gangster romance. The lyrics were about the life that we lived. Rap music is a form of expression. In our life, there were robberies, weapons, drugs and serious crime. I do not see it as glorification, but I can understand why people get that idea. They have seen all these American rappers, 80 percent of them are not real street guys. They are products of labels who picked them up and turned them into these dangerous guys who rap about things they have not experienced. These wannabe gangstas in the US represent glorification. But in terms of us, we lived the life we were rapping about and one can hardly call it glorification. Everyone has the right to express themselves and we did it through the art form of hip hop.”
But today the lyrics seem more political and about the experience of doing time in prison. “Absolutely. We have evolved as a band and become better at writing lyrics. Sebbe raps better, he has a better flow. We work with a better producer and have developed in every way, even spiritually. We started Kartellen back in 2007 and it was then I started writing the lyrics that came out in 2008. At that time I had only done three years and mentally I was still out there and had not accepted my sentence. The lyrics came from my earlier life when I was outside. Now I’ve done nine years and that life is long gone. I’d be a fake if I continued writing such lyrics, as I no longer live that life. I sit here in prison and reflect and think about what I’ve been through, that’s what the Ånger och kamp records are about. The difference between 2008 and 2013 is that in 2008 it was about things in the past, how we were living back then, while now we reflect on the past. In 2007 both myself and Sebbe were criminals, at that time I would have committed crimes if I had the chance. Today, I can no longer call myself a criminal. I do not commit crimes and do not think in criminal terms. Neither does Sebbe.”
The first single Underklassmusik opens with a sampled speech by the late Social Democrat prime minister Olof Palme about the difference between children growing up in the projects and in the middle class villa suburbs. “What he says is exactly what we have been rapping about from day one, about income inequality and discrimination. He is so spot on in the speech, as if he has foreseen the future. That speech is more relevant than ever, this is what is happening today. Income inequality has soared and never been this high before in Sweden.
I ask him if he has always been political. “Kartellen has been political from day one. The difference is that in 2008 we went out hard with this street thing but even then we had a blog that was political because even at that time we wanted to keep a balance. Saying we live this life, but explaining there is a background to it and why some people end up in these situations and choose to live like that. Politics have always been there but the difference is that today we have brought it into the lyrics. Moreover, there is the general election in 2014, we want to help to create debate. It is our duty to lobby for the left.”
The lyrics are also about Stockholm’s projects. Leo was 12 years old when he came from Chile to the suburb of Jordbro. In Chile he had been a choirboy with good school grades. “Comparing how I was in Chile, and how I was in Sweden, it was like night and day. In Chile I went to a Catholic school with a lot of rules and discipline. In Jordbro I had to adapt myself to the environment. As a child you have to socialize and make friends. The problem was that my friends in Jordbro were contaminated by social problems. There were Swedish amphetamine addicts and immigrants who became heroin addicts, poor people who used violence. I just adapted to my surroundings and it was as it was, it ended as it ended.
Leo is in no doubt when asked about what the biggest problems are with the council estate suburbs of Stockholm? “The concentration of serious social problems. There are educated people who come from Latin America and Central Asia, they are often from the middle class but end up in the worst ghetto areas like Fittja, Jordbro, Tensta. It’s a shame that they immediately become branded as lower class. Many of them have an image of Sweden as a paradise and do not keep up their guard. They do not think in terms of slums because in Chile and Afghanistan there are areas where people are living in tents. They think the standard is quite OK and the lawns are fine but do not understand what is going on between the blocks. The problem is their children who make the same mistakes I did. The kids get the wrong friends and get confused by this kind of western suburban life. One thing leads to another and suddenly they are heroin addicts or bank robbers. If the parents had known from the beginning what to expect in these Swedish areas, I think it would have been easier.”
“This is a question about information, refugees should have it explained to them where they will end up. We must not forget that this is the fault of conservative Moderaterna politicians because from day one they have refused to accept refugees into their own municipalities. They are the ones who ensured that segregation has become so pervasive.
The fire alarm in the kitchen goes off when I visit Sebbe in the working class suburb of Bandhagen. “This is a quiet suburb. I live here to get away from everything. The guys pick me up by car.” Sebbe just cooked a low carb dinner for us. Steak with salad and feta and manchego cheese, Diet Coke to drink. The ankle bracelet he wears is because of an incident during a relapse last summer, possession of a weapon inside of a bar. “My old life follows me,” he says. Around the same time, he was fined for threatening to murder Jimmie Åkesson, leader of Sweden’s right-wing nationalist party Sverigedemokraterna, on Twitter. But life has changed for the better for Sebbe. He says he has put crime behind him and that he lives a sober life. Every weekend he performs, although police still cancel some of the gigs, such as recent ones in Täby and Umeå. He asks if I use snus and opens up a sponsorship fridge from Swedish Match and hands me two packets of snus. “All the time companies give me stuff, clothes and things,” he says.
“It has been an eventful year. I’ve been working full time with music. Not committing any crimes, doing nothing but music. Highlights were when we played in front of 8,000 people at Gröna Lund and 7,500 at Bråvalla Festival. Since I’m a Stockholm kid, it was a special feeling to stand at Gröna Lund’s big stage. Before the show, the police came there and said, “Please Sebbe, do not to start a riot,” as they saw how many people were there and were afraid. I said, “It’s cool”. “Thanks,” they replied.
The new album Ånger och kamp 2 is a dark record about broken relationships and abuse. “But I can’t say the situation has been that fuckin’ bright. We have always made reality rap and continue to tell stories. There has never been glamour. Life is generally quite dark,” he says.
I ask him if the lyrics have changed. “We did tracks for the girls when we started, such as one with soul singer Pauline, but when Leo started Kartellen he was still angry and a criminal and thinking in those terms. Now he is doing his tenth year and as a person he has reached further, of course there will be more reflections on the life he has lived.
“The most important thing in his life is his son, and clearly he reflects on that. I have stopped doing drugs and crime and now I reflect more on my choices. Politics have always existed but today we are more concrete. For example, in 2008 in the beginning of the song Hundragubbar we rapped about police commissioner Carin Götblad, ‘taking the informer’s head and sticking it in (police chief) Olle Liljegren’s ass and Olle Liljegren’s head up in Carin Götblad’s pussy / that’s the new gold chain/police chain.’ Do you remember that song? It was an obscene statement but a political statement, as we pointed out how dirty the police work. If that’s not political, what is? Now we just cleaned it up a bit.”
But have they cleaned up to be more accepted? “The change has come quite naturally. In the beginning it was 100 percent hate, no reflection. I still do not like cops but during 2008 they were my immediate enemies in a different way. You know, just as criminals can have enemies. Today I have calmed down. It’s not the same hate and therefore there is more thought behind the lyrics.”
The song Älskade barn, which he co-wrote with Leo, is about a father in prison who can’t see his children. Sebbe himself was in custody when he got his first chance to see his newborn.
He says that usually he and Leo write their own songs. A song he wrote himself is Förortsbarn. “I describe Bagarmossen where I grew up. When my parents first moved there, it was a nice working-class suburb with only one block that had social problems. But since then the misery and alienation in Bagarmossen has escalated, it got worse and worse and became a criminal environment for a young man to grow up in. There were no lawyers and doctors, the stars from Bagarmossen were the criminals. One of them was the principal perpetrator of the helicopter robbery. There were hard gangsters that a child like myself looked up to.
The song Vägen till fördär contains the line “The street is like cancer,” a strong sentiment Sebbe still holds true.
“It is. Criminality is like a cancer and it eats you from within. Somewhere it begins to change you a bit but in the end it changes the whole you.”
I ask him about how it felt that the play Medans vi faller, which he and Leo wrote based on Sebbe’s life, was so well-received in a rather bourgeois environment.
“Absurd. At the same time, it felt good. It was like getting an acknowledgment that, ‘OK, you have talent.’ I always knew that Leo and I have talent. Now, he has written books and he has a strategic and cultural talent. But many people have said, ‘You’d never have been noticed unless you said ‘fuck the police’ and robbed banks.’ When we did Medans vi faller there was no longer anything to criticize us for, we got exposure because we made a fucking good play. No one can take that away from me, that I wrote and starred in a play and that people actually liked it.”
Words Cyril Hellman
Kartellen’s new album Ånger och Kamp Del 2 came out on Nov 29
