I’ve been covering news in Sweden for the past few months and one of them cases involved the victim in this story.
In the city of Stockholm, the statistics for the year of 2021 say there have been 273 shootings and 40 people have been killed so far.
And this is a country with an inhabitants of 10.3 million so in comparison to the UK with over 60 million inhabitants you can see how high that statistic really is.
Sadly the violence has escalated and the latest victim of what police say are gang related drug feuds is an award winning Grammy artist named Einar.
His real name is Nils Kurt Erik Einar Grönberg and his mother is a famous actress called Lina Nilsson
He was the most streamed rapper in the country in 2019.
I’ve been listening to his music and I don’t speak Swedish so I did have to translate some of the lyrics, but I also got a good idea of what his music was about my interpretation of Einar’s music was that he was a drill rapper, but he sung as well, heavily influenced by a new trend coming from America where they will sing so it sounds like it’s actually a nice song.
Sadly the reality is more sinister what they are saying in the lyrics, talking about shootings and “ride outs” and gang related activity.
In turn Multi-million pound companies are funding and supporting these artists to sometimes create conflict amongst each other.
A prime example being a year ago Einar was in conflict with two rappers named Haval and Yasin and they were both jailed for plotting to kidnap the rapper, which was revealed by Encro chat messages, i covered that story several months ago.
Mahmoud’s stage name is Yasin, he is a big artist as well.
He admitted to planning the kidnapping in March 2020.
During the trial the court heard that he planned to meet the victim who was a rival rapper, recording studio and law him to a car park in central Stockholm.
Yasin was jailed for 10 months, and her Haval was jailed for two and a half years for conspiracy to commit robbery and kidnap.
The kidnapping was part of a broader case involving 30 suspects that was described as the very network I interviewed originally being called to testify in court, but it didn’t turn up.
A Swedish newspaper called the daily after blooded reported on Friday, the owner was living with a price on his head, after a series of deficits that were made against him had recently escalated.
He himself was one of several suspects arrested for a stabbing at restaurants in central Stockholm earlier this month.
He grew up in southern Stockholm and often refer to the criminal scene in the area in his work, he started his career posting videos to social media, and broke through in 2019 release in a song that translates in English as the cat in the area.
This got number one and Sweden singles charts and he won several Music Awards, and also the Swedish Grammys, fans and friends have expressed their grief on on his social media.
He was a real brother to me, I will miss him so much, we released our first record last week, and he feels so strange that I spoke to him just a day ago.
This was written by Toby a producer on Instagram.
Two years ago another lesser known rapper called Roz shamal, was murdered.
Sweden has struggled in the rise in shootings, the police have said in past years, and also bombings as well, where the brutality that is being used by gangs in Stockholm has increased significantly, the prime minister said this is a young life that has been lost.
“I understand that you meant a lot to other people, and it’s tragic that we have seen this happen again.
The shooting took place at 11pm in the south of Stockholm, several newspapers the express the broadcaster SVT, and other Swedish media’s have identified him even though the police have yet to do so.
He died at the scene emergency responders have said and there has been arrests but the Stockholm police said they are actively working to find out what happened and who is behind the murder.
Einar’s music was very American influenced as well.
One song was called Pop smoke. Another one was called Frank Lucas, which are both American based movie and music icons, which shows that it’s definitely reaching further than just America and the influence that he’s had in the UK. In his music.
He also spoke that he predicted people wanted to kill him, and also the lack of trust that he had in a lot of people.
So sadly, I won’t be able to play much of his music in this video due to the amount of protection that his music has got from record companies that were surely going to profit significantly from his death in record sales in streams.
So hope some of that money can go to some good cause is to try and help the situation in the city in Stockholm, and also Sweden as a whole.
“Sweden has a serious problem with organized crime,” explains Manne Gerell, professor of Criminology at the Swedish University of Malmö.
The data indicates it has one of the highest rates of firearm deaths in Europe, with more than 200 victims in the last five years.
In 2020, the record was broken with 48 murders, the vast majority of which were related to the fight over the drug trafficking market.
So really appreciate you joining me today.
Please don’t forget to send your stories to news at scarcity-studios.com.
And I’ll be back again very shortly with some more news.
Peace.
