I was in a mental hospital. That's all I wanna say. I don't wanna say anything more.
Yung Lean
I lived with my parents in Belarus, and I went to Russian kindergarten, which is where I learned Russian. Belarus had just become an independent country; there was no food in the supermarkets, so it looked very post-war, very Soviet.
I'm like Loki in Nordic mythology: one day I'll be a woman and the next day a snake.
I do love my Gucci slides. I wear them inside. I'm like an old Russian man who wears slides in his house.
I'm not really into 'My Little Pony.' I'm not a 'Brony,' just to clear that up.
I was brought up on Black Sabbath, David Bowie, 50 Cent, and Guru. And it all comes out in my own music somewhere.
I don't like party music. I like emotional music.
I met Fredo Santana three days before he passed. We were in the studio in Los Angeles, actually, listening to 'Get Rich Or Die Tryin,' and he's a great human being.
I don't like being told what to do.
I worked flipping cheeseburgers and Big Mac's at McDonald's, purchased a microphone, and cleared all the stuff out of my basement and started making music.
Ever since I was a kid, I had the urge of expressing myself in any way. Like many kids, you want try on different clothes, different looks. I was kinda punky for a while: I had makeup under my eyes. Then I started wearing more baggy stuff.
When I first broke out, everyone was like, 'OK, so is this a joke?' They had to wait until I sold out shows before newspapers started writing about it.
I've always had jobs with hierarchies - wherever I worked, like McDonald's, or cleaning toilets. It's always been hard.
Lean just follows his heart wherever it wants to go.
I have to pay a huge price to express myself. You get people asking to take photos all the time; you can't ride the subway... I still ride the subway, but there's always people sneaking photos or coming up to you.
I didn't want to be a one-hit wonder. I really wanted to make albums that had a different aesthetic every album and a different sound.
It's kind of beautiful to sit inside a bus and see a city from the windows.
I hate it when people try to explain music. The best thing about music is that it's invisible. If you make a song and someone is like, 'Explain it,' and you explain the message, it's like - poof. It all crashes down.
I'm really into, like, characters - music characters like Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain - just, like, how they are and stuff. Like Lil Wayne.
I'm building an anarchistic society from the ground up.
I've always been an outsider everywhere I go - I don't fit in with the Swedish rap community or the American rap community. But who cares?
I don't think I could live anywhere else but Stockholm.
I'm really like a rat in the rap game. I just drop stuff when I feel like it.
I'm not gonna go to university. I don't want to do anything.
There was a recording studio in my school, and I knew this kid who had a key, so I'd write lyrics in school while I was in class, and then, in a 10-minute break, I recorded the song 'Hurt' in one go at the school studio.
I guess I'm just proud that I kept on working, not becoming just a viral hit.
You can't really run from your roots.
I don't associate myself with anything. I don't associate myself with where I'm from or where I am.
I'm in my own little world. I don't get invited into galas; I don't meet other people that I don't find interesting. I hang with my friends all the time, and we do exactly what we like.
I think you shouldn't get my music confused with who I am or who we are, because Yung Lean, from the beginning, is like a character created by me. Yung Lean was everything that Jonatan wasn't. And so me, as a person, and my views on things are certainly different than Yung Lean's views, so you should definitely not get those two mixed up.
I love Future. 'Turn on the Lights' is the best song ever. You can cry to it. You can relate to it.
The first idea is always the best.
We can be a little less organized in Stockholm; it's not really that serious. And on the White Marble tour in Europe - I don't think there's as much hardcore fans as in the U.S. In the U.S., it's like this whole celebrity culture.
Shanghai was a peculiar city: so many people; everyone seemed to be working all the time. The skyline was beautiful.
In the U.S., everything is big - it's like looking through a magnifying glass.
I don't like political rappers.
I had a lot of space as a kid. My mother worked with human rights for the government, and my dad had a book publishing company, but they weren't really musical.
Yung Lean is like water: he's always changing due to the temperature, how he's feeling.
I think a lot of American fans or people that read about us - they think that we're trying to be a part of the American culture, like all these Swedish kids that love America. We rap in English, so I guess there's something, but we're very Swedish, actually.
I just make videos and stuff. There's not much more to it than that. I'm a musician trying to express myself.
If it was the '70s, I'd be a punk artist. I was just born into hip-hop.
As soon as my brain starts working on reading a book, my dreams get a little more exciting, and music comes a little more naturally for me.
I'm still an outsider in the hip hop community. I don't even know if I'm making hip hop anymore.
I like working with my hands, need to do that more often.
My parents were definitely encouraging with creativity.
I'm not a very macho guy.
I don't know what I wear. I don't think much about fashion.
I made my first mixtape when I was 11.
I'd like to live in a house in Miami and make music, or Brooklyn.
When I was in fourth grade, I made a song about the part in Stockholm where we come from.
