Is Swedish Rapper Yung Lean a Genius or a Gentrifier? He Doesn't Care and Neither Do His Fans

Sprouting up now through the crisp, white Swedish ice into the thicket of the hiphop world is the replica-rap of Yung Lean. Direct from Södermalm in Stockholm, Sweden, 18-year-old Jonatan Leandoer Håstad and his Sad Boys crew are charging through the internet to a stage near you. Their debut album, Unknown Memory, just dropped, so spaz out and step right up to hear the Swede in a bucket hat imitate a Southern "baller" accent. Yung Lean hints at syrup-drinking and disses bitches just like his rap heroes. He also raps in caves with a My Little Pony doll. Yes! He's from Sweden, but does that make the rapping any less blocky or obvious? Is there skill? Is it parody? Is this hiphop evolution or gentrification? Questions abound. How does a kid who's so baby-faced he'd get carded buying powdered doughnuts rap about razor blades, cocaine addicts, and getting his balls licked by a Zooey Deschanel look-alike when he was 6 years old? He does have a must-see-for-yourself appeal, and XXL recently included Lean in their 2014 list of "15 European Rappers You Should Know." He and the production are progressing, and he's selling out rooms. His sweaty fans don't care about the questions. Neither does Yung Lean. He spoke.

Are you real?

I'm a hologram.

Are the Sad Boys real?

Yung Sherman and Yung Gud got trapped in Tron.

How many languages do you speak?

Russian was my mother's original language. I lost it when I came to Sweden. Swedish was my first, English second, and Spanish third.

In "Ghosttown," you say you "don't give a fuck" and you "get that money stack." I know you can be more creative than that. Whatever you do, don't do a video on a yacht.

That means the next video will be on a yacht for sure.

In "Ginseng Strip 2002," you rap about "hitting chicks," and "transmitting shit with an AIDS stick/Think you're gay as fuck like a fish stick." Do people give you shit about those lyrics?

What do you mean?

Do people tell you not to make fun of AIDS and gays? And maybe not rap about beating women?

I don't mean to poke fun at anyone. It is symbology in a way.

What's Sweden like?

Sad. It's sort of a sad country.

What are you listening to?

Kool Keith. Air France. Shades of Blue by Madlib. Quasimoto's The Unseen. The Embassy.

What was the first music you ever tried making?

I sampled Diana Ross, but it was bad. Shout out to Nintendo, Mario, and Pokémon.

I talked to a classically trained pianist who transcribed your song "Ice Cold Smoke." She said the music has complexity. Under all the Auto-Tune and reverb, the song exists in a nether region that's a quarter-tone between two keys. Did you know this?

Sometimes Yung Lean doesn't give away all the secrets. Sometimes it's better just for the ears. I'm the Phantom of the Opera [laughs].

Your collaborations with Travi$ Scott and Yung Gleesh are cool. You have some work to do.

I'm the best ever [laughs]. No, Gleesh and Travi$ are the best. I was so glad to work with them.

Do people in your hometown like you?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. At the start, we got bad reviews from the media. People hated us, and still hate us. It's like they are afraid of having opinions there. Swedish people wait for things to be popular in the US and Europe before they make an opinion for themselves. If something is strange and not easy to understand, they will not like it.

When you were 5 years old in Södermalm and you heard Ghostface Killah, what happened? How did you first become a baller?

Tupac came down from the sky and fed me raw meat. He told me to listen to Curtis Mayfield and Shock G. Then we worked out on his home gym machine doing sit-ups and tricep exercises for five years. We played 7,000 games of chess. Then he dropped me 50 miles into a forest, and I had to find my way out, blindfolded.

I can't believe Tupac didn't have you listen to James Brown's The Payback album.

James Brown was there, in the forest. He showed me the internet [laughs]. That's how I discovered RiFF RAFF. RiFF RAFF's music made James Brown turn into an angry rhino that ran off through the woods clearing a path for me to take.

If you got a tattoo on your cheek like Gucci Mane, it would shut your haters up. A face tattoo is your next logical step. What will your face tattoo be?

My face tattoo will be the painting of Saturn Devouring His Son, with Dr. Dre as Saturn and Eminem as his son.

What are your impressions of the United States?

I keep hearing about Girl Scout cookies, but I have not found any. I heard about Tagalongings and Thin Mints. These are things to smoke, right [laughs]? I would just really like to try them.

What other American things do you want to try?

[Pauses] I would like to have a redneck experience. We have soccer fans in Europe who are kind of crazy, but it's different.

Redneck is easy. If you want it real, you have to get Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy Breaky Heart" going—that's Miley's dad—or Toby Keith. Then jack your truck up and drive it to the Florida Everglades for a python hunt. There are too many pythons in Florida, so they have these contests for cash to see who can kill the most.

I saw the guy who was going to get eaten by a snake for television. It seemed like it was fake. He probably got a lot of cash.

We'd also watch tractors pull concrete slabs through mud. Then we'd do whippets and fish for bass. Do they do mud bogs in Sweden?

We do mud blogs every day.