Ken Ring plans to retire as a rap artist, leaving behind almost two decades of music and scandal headlines. But first he makes a final record and will be out on tour. Ken Ring was early on unfiltering about dark episodes from his own life and the reality he saw in Hässelby during his childhood. In his autobiography he has openly told about his abuse, threats and drugs, but now he looks differently at his role as an artist.
"You have grown older and family father, I can no longer stand for everything that I have stood for over the years," says the 40-year-old rapper today.
- I also don't want to be part of what destroys young people in the future, I want to be able to do something different and let people see me as a role model and an inspiration, says Ken Ring.
Since breaking through 1999 with the song "Mamma" he has managed to release 15 albums and put a strong mark on how Swedish rap has come to sound, he was one of the artists who laid the musical foundation for the wave of gangster rap that currently dominates the charts with raw depictions of a brutal reality. But it's not always because of the music Ken Ring has been drawn to.
“The plan: rob the hip-hop elite”
Ken Ring points to the headline "The Plan: robbing the hip-hop elite", one of many "heading nodes" who adorn a wall in his studio.
- This was me and a policeman who unfortunately does not live today. But we had some plan for us to take all the rappers put them in a room and rob everyone, forcing them to overwrite their music rights to us, says Ken Ring.
The plan to force rappers like Timbuktu, Promoe and Petter to sign a deal to give away part of their income for the future under gunfire was never realized.
Are the strulet and headlines part of the Ken Ring brand?
- All advertising is good advertising, you have been arrested, detained here and there. Obviously, it makes it interesting in the eyes of many people.
The amount of weapons and drugs that can be seen in today's gangster rap, a scene he was in and laid the groundwork for, he sees as a result of what society looks like.
- I would say that the development of the scene is a result of the development of society. Rap has always reflected the street and society: The more violence there is in society the more violence comes out in the music.
- It's easy to say check out the rap music, which puts gasoline on the fire. But in my world society has become coarser and then the music becomes coarser too.
Is music today a way out of crime, or into it?
- Of course, it's a way out of crime. There is a lot of money involved, there is cash to be made. But then what you choose to do with your own success is up to yourself. There, perhaps, many people instead choose to be criminals and then report it.