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2bstudioblog:

Arrived at work this morning, checking messages and then I go into the Swedish newspaper “Aftonbladet” to discover to my horror that a person I wrote about in an earlier post has been shot dead in a gang related incident.

Einar, the so called Swedish wunderkind of mumble-rap, has sadly left the earth too soon in the suites of a lifestyle I wasn’t sure was real. His song text as far as I understood it was at one point about drugs and criminality, but in a way to make people open up their eyes that even “blonde” swedes end up at the wrong end of the stick and wanted to make a change to their horrible world they were living in. Problem was, nobody listened.

He took the wrong turn

And if nobody listened, Einar didn’t make a change that he could have done to make his life safer, but decided staying in the same area and start flashing his jewelry, watches and the most idiotic thing of all, a bulletproof vest with the LV logo draped all over it. It seems he didn’t take the threats seriously and just mocked the people. By flashing he pissed people off, no matter if he is in a gang or not. But the worst thing he could have done was to talk about things he has never done (wrote about this in my previous post about a year ago.) or experienced. As the saying goes in the rap-circles, especially in the “gangsta-rap” genre, you don’t talk about things you’ve never done or try to imagine. It’s about being REAL and not fake. He made statements that made him into a mytho-maniac and a target at the same time, which is the worst situation to be in. He could have changed his life as soon as he had his big hit, but he decided to stay in the poor neighborhood and in the misery for those living in a lower-middle class standard. This could have been avoided if he didn’t think about himself, but helping his parents, use that money to get into a university or whatever. But with him, the money was just a way for him to get what he wanted and making himself again a target. I thought the touring would kill him for his inexperience, but the inexperience caught him where he ended, with a gun he never fired, but imagined, the false image becoming the disrespect that triggered the killer to “straight” it all out. From my point of view, these rappers behave like 3-year old toddlers with no reasoning skill, who cannot share a toy with others on the playground or to play fair. And now this will go above the rest of us musicians to try to clean ourselves up from this bad image.

Music & Drugs – The Myth

Another misconception are that musicians are using drugs on and off stage because people think they are doing it for the cool factor. From my point of view, I’ve never gotten drunk, I’ve never smoked and I would never in my wildest dreams consider drugs as a way of me becoming on the top of my game. Drugs don’t enhance my musical skills. I don’t think drugs could ever enhance my skills at all, but it could definitely change my perception of the world around me, but that’s not really a reality right?

I remember that back in the 50 to the early 90s, musicians and drugs was like “common”. Miles Davis, we all know he was addicted to some substance, but not as a music-booster. It was just as a sleep-denier during the nightly tour-bus rides which in the end messed up with his system in the end. But on stage the closest thing you would find near him would be a cigarette or 2nd hand smoke. But he was always “crisp” and clear-headed during the gigs. The drugs was just a support with all the stress and extended “safety” in case the bus-driver would fall asleep behind the well.

More and more bands today has started a cleaner lifestyle. We all remembered Nirvana, but we could see right away the stoned eyes of Kurt Kobain. The sole focus was on him and gave the illusion that the rest of the members did the same. However, I’ve felt Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stoneage has always managed to be clean even though the music is gruff, cool, punk-ish and experimental, still has structure of a comprehensive mind. For me, he has become the image every music group should display, happiness in music, interacting with fans and give the world the hope and community through his work with this amazing girl who challenged him to a drum-off during the pandemic. It brought me tears to my eyes because I thought to myself: -”Are we there now where music does not need to be stigmatized with guns and violence and not connect it to music and console-games as the common denominator?” I felt that we have reached a peak once he managed to come up with the brilliant idea of a “free concert for everyone who gets vaccinated”.

1 Gun, Several gunshots, 1 Murder

Sometimes I wonder if Sweden has any laws at all. How can people or teenagers get access to firearms in a country where only the police and the military are allowed to have for self-protection purposes? Sure, we are not as bad as the USA when it comes to gun-violence, but for me this is a big issue. Sweden must do something to make all of this shit relevant and deal with it together with raising the taxes, increase pay for people in the public sector and to let peoples savings for the future in form of pensions not to be messed with.

Gang violence have increased heavily in the last 15 years after I left Sweden. When I did hear about people getting killed in the beginning it was mostly by stabbing with knives. 5 years later guns started to become frequently in Swedish murder cases, hard to solve. Public shootings started in the last 3 years outside nightclubs and daily shootings at people sitting in cafes just to have small talk, having their days ruined and traumatized by these maniacs.

But it takes 1 gun, several gunshots to create 1 murder. The motive was obvious in this case, suspects are already on the police’s radar. The question for me has been “why?”. Anyone who did it is someone we already know, another gang, another rapper. And Einar was about to give his eyewitness account against that gang-member in court just a few days away from today. But he got silenced for tempting and flipping off the same rival who already has been in jail, awaiting a real prosecution for kidnapping and other cases of violence and even murder.

Sometimes I wonder if Sweden works at all. Read in the papers that a rape victim got 20 000 SEK in compensation while the rapist claimed he was treated unfairly, getting 840 000 SEK in his case. This is insanity, not fair. I just get horrified that people can be so blind to reason. The RAPIST should be thrown into the darkest hole without any compensation. Why is this so hard for the Swedish legal system to dodge and find some idiotic loophole when the evidence are piled up against him and he still walks away like a winner? Special case, my ass.

Paranoia is my friend

This is what I have to deal with while I go back to my country every time. Paranoia is my friend. It all starts at the airport. When I get through those doors, lots of people are waiting and even scoping out targets that they’ll try to mark and call to people waiting at the other end to ambush them. I do the only psychological thing that does bite; I look them in the eyes, standing tall, not bending over with my heavy backpack. I want them to know that I see them and it is pointless to try to even hustle me. I also decide to walk where there are cameras and security personnel around me to make it hard for them to even consider ambushing me. But that’s the thing, once I am in Sweden, I never switch off. I am in “observer” mode from the moment I land until I leave. Exhausting, but it has saved my life countless of times just to look the part.

People living in patterns feel “safe”

This is where the problem lies. When you have a schedule, same routine you start switching off your brain and not considering that nothing else where you are could turn into a war-zone with just a single bullet being fired. Most people freeze in shock, can’t move because they are STUCK in their pattern. Sweden is considered safe, but once you walk to an area and you start to see gang “colors”, or people in large groups looking the same. Sweden has become soft and it is time we start solving the problem with GUNS. Again it took another death and nobody has changed an iota about this issue.