YUNG LEAN

YUNG LEAN

14th September 2024 // Peiraios 260

When the Swedish indie scene crashed and burned a couple of years back, Yung Lean wriggled out from it´s wreckage like hybrid between Arthur Russel and Lil Wayne, a born entertainer armed with tracks like “Ginseng Strip 2002” and “Hurt”. And even though very few imagined that Swedish hip-hop could become a global phenomenon, in the subsequent years the Stockholm artist has established himself as a trailblazer within the constantly fluctuating realms of leftfield rap, releasing three studio albums (including his most recent 2017 LP, Stranger), three mixtapes and a multitude of sonically diverse side-projects through Swedish record label YEAR0001.

Still merely 23 years of age, his tale is as unassuming as it is wildly exploratory, a contradictory narrative about a misfit stranger from nowhere who, together with his friends and producers Gud and Yung Sherman, became a worldwide phenomenon almost overnight – a protracted and at times grievous metamorphosis from pubertal, post-internet novelty to D.I.Y icon status with widespread influence over anything and everything from bizarre art projects to mainstream culture alike.

From experimenting and recording in a highschool computer lab to first hand encounters of the triumphs and tragedies of rockstar hyperbole, the mere 6 years passed since his first YouTube uploads saw the light of day have seen him set off on a seemingly genreless and open minded dispatch into the past, present and future of pop culture, an alternate reality where early internet aesthetics, late 90 ́s southern rap and a punk mindset all fuse perfectly together.

Yung Lean is also a highly visual experience; since he first exploded onto the internet wearing pristine white bucket hats and luxury sportswear, he has used fashion, art, videos and live shows in ever more inventive ways to offer a brief glimpse into the mind of Yung Lean – a weathered and peculiar artist in his own world, eccentric and always scrutinised, unaffected by the attention as he plunges deeper towards the next phase of his artistic expression.

Links:
Website – www.yunglean.com
Soundcloud – www.soundcloud.com/yung-lean-doer/sets/starz-9