Arts & Culture
SOSNICK | R8 My Column Fam: On Sad Boys and Emotional Shawties
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Hip hop culture in Sweden is about as bleak as its winters. Despite the lack of a club circuit or a network of rap promoters, though, 19-year-old Stockholm native Jonatan Håstad has built an Internet empire on sizzurp motifs, Japanese text, vaporwave visuals and overwhelming sadness. Better known as Yung Lean — with an album called Warlord on its way later this month — Håstad is Internet music at its most Internet. Having grown up alongside computers, his slack rap seems inspired exclusively by online culture, drawing more from 4chan than from attending live shows. Propelled by a dearth of Swedish hip hop history, Yung Lean went straight to the Internet for source material as much as distribution.