Yung Lean: Doctor Said He's Gonna Be A Sad Boy

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There are reasons Yung Lean’s still around, though. I’ve looked into it – I even spoke to him about it a few days back. I was interested to know. Yung Lean got famous, so to speak, in 2013. He was 17 years old, an independent artist, and then, quite suddenly, a star of international proportions. Odds are he should have fucked the dream off a long time ago, yet it’s 2022, and the kid’s still standing.

In April, the now 26-year-old Swedish rapper (aka Jonatan Leandoer96) released a mixtape called Stardust, featuring industry giants FKA Twigs, Skrillex, Thaiboy Digital, Ant Wan, Bladee and Ecco2K. It’s about the millionth thing he’s done in the near decade since his first hit, “Ginseng Strip 2002,” went viral on YouTube — which is good, because with Yung Lean, there will for sure be bangers. Because that’s what he does. Next, he’s scheduled to tour Europe, and be in North America by late fall. Nothing's static, though; Yung Lean stays evolving. And this kid has certainly seen evolution — from his first ever gig at McDonald’s, to the work he’s put out over the last nine years: four albums, four mixtapes, videos, singles, and his post-punk side project Död Mark. He also paints. He's taken up boxing. Fuck if I know where he gets the energy for it all, but I respect it.

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Nico Walker – So where are you right now?

Yung Lean – I'm in Stockholm. I'm in my apartment.

I guess I saw the tour dates and stuff, I didn't know if you were on the road. I know in August, what, you're going to be in Poland, right?

Yeah, I'm going to be in Poland, and Romania, and Lithuania. [I’ll be] doing some special places in Europe.

Is this your first time touring since all the bullshit?

Yeah, basically. We were supposed to tour right before all the bullshit, and then when everything started, it was kind of nice to just be at home. I felt it was almost like I saw it coming. I just had this dream of everyone being at home. I bought a bunch of canvases, and I stayed at home and just painted. I was waiting for everyone to do the same.

I hear you, because I was thinking about that. I was looking at everything, and it's like, you'd done so many albums in such a short time, and all that work must've been just, I don't know... since you're so young, too. I mean, it must've been sweet, I guess, in a way. I mean, unfortunately, given everything else, but you probably needed a break. When did you start working on Stardust? 

I started working on Stardust maybe 2020, 2021. I just wanted to do something that was fun. The idea was basically that, how I've done a lot of the other albums, it's like a 50/50 kind of collaboration with the producer, like Ludwig or Mic, Young Gud or whatever. These are people that I've known since childhood. Once we do an album, we really get into it, and we get manic into it. We just sit and do it. We might rent a house or a cabin in the woods. We just sit there and almost kill each other, pushing each other. You don't leave until it's perfect. Then for Stardust, I wanted to just have a bunch of beats, and sit in a studio with an engineer and decide everything myself. That's how it came about. It was very spontaneous.

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And you got Skrillex. You got a bunch of different collabs on there, too. How did all that work? Was any of that in-person, or was it all just email and Zoom?

Me and Skrillex met once ages ago in Iceland. Then I started hearing all these – like when you listen to the radio and you hear all these pop songs – and all the good pop songs, like, if Justin Bieber had a good song, it was always produced by Skrillex. I started looking into it more, and he had this emo band. You could tell he's very musical. He was in Stockholm, and I was doing this project, a side project I have with just my name, called Jonatan Leandoer96. We're doing this rock album, and Skrillex comes into the studio and it's filled with people. The first thing he does, he just takes a guitar and starts playing. He just snaps into it. I was like, "Oh, okay. Okay.” Yeah, he's all about the music, really, and I appreciate that. He blew up in this way that it was like, well, you could say kind of the same way that I did, in a way that I don't think people understood at first. It was like a bomb of internet and culture, just all put into one, and then just shot out in this dubstep way. Yeah. It was sort of divisive at the time.

About DJs, you had Justice, or whatever. Then Skrillex came out, and it was just, like, a total sea change, I guess.

Yeah. It definitely changed. I guess when Justice came, too, it went… I don't know where. But the “Stress” video — I love that video. It still does something to this day. I think people don't really try to be provocative anymore in music videos. People are like, "You know what, I should just get as much [of a] budget as possible. I'll put on the wackiest clothes, and I'll do the craziest thing." It's a trend right now. It's not really what people have in their hearts. That video, people were scared of that video. People were like, "Did this happen for real? Is this a documentary? Did these kids go and vandalize this? Is this real?" It was this beautiful moment of... There's this movie, it's called something about a dog, like a Dog Bite or something. It's a French movie. It's about this psychopath.

When is it from? 

The '70s.

Is it called White Dog? 

White Dog, exactly. It's a great movie. When White Dog came out, apparently people didn't know if it was real or not. They were disgusted by the movie. And I think when “Stress” came out, people were disgusted by “Stress.” They didn't get it.

I don't know if it's a weird thing I do, or it's an annoying thing I do, but whenever I meet people, and I'm hanging out with them for the first time, one of the things I always do is I play that “Stress” video for them on my phone at some point. I'm just like, "Have you seen this? And if you haven't, you have to."

I had the same thing with a movie called Happiness.

Rest in peace, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He was fucking great.

He's one of the best actors ever. I was watching that on my first dates, just to see what the vibe was, see what the temperature was. Have you seen the new movie Licorice Pizza?

Yeah. It was Paul Thomas Anderson, right?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah. Paul Thomas Anderson, yeah. I love that movie. It was an epic movie even though it's very… normal, what happens. It's very relatable, and it's very human. I love anything where... it's like this thing where a writer, or a filmmaker or whatever, can handle that sort of social awkwardness, that kind of earnestness, and do it in a way that's just real. It hits it. It's not a spoof. It's just very human.

Yeah, same here. I love that movie. It's like what you're saying. It's when you're making a movie, and it's a coming of age film, but it doesn't have to involve a big tragedy. The moral doesn't have to punch you in the face. I didn't realize that was Philip Seymour Hoffman's son until I saw the credits. I was just like, "Oh shit, they got someone who looks just like Philip Seymour Hoffman to get the vibe of him."

It's definitely something in the genes, the genetics. They can act. They can act their fucking dicks off.

If you watch a movie like that, are you interested in the scripts since you're a writer? Do you want to read the script? 

I do read screenplays. One of the things, when I was learning to write, I suppose, that was really helpful is something that I carry around with me. I have it with me right now, but it's Ingmar Bergman screenplays.

Which ones?

Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, whatever. I think that, as a writer, I guess, studying screenplays, it’s a cheat sheet for how to do arcs. You don't have all the prose, but it's all the stories. So it was very helpful to me to learn that way. Quentin Tarantino's another one – I've read a lot of his screenplays. I know that's not especially original of me, but I like the way he formats them.

People are so left field that they can't even mention Quentin Tarantino, but there's no script that's better than Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs. 

For sure. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't know, politics is always hard. I saw this interview with you one time, and they were talking about the Norwegian death metal scene. And you were like, "I don't fuck with his politics, but his music is great," is what you said in so many words. And I felt that.

Whenever someone's been so acknowledged in society, especially in Sweden, you have to check him. That's what happened with Ingmar Bergman. He was number one. He was like, the top don. He was the big cat in everything. At one point, he thought that he had eight kids, and then the interviewer has to -– because he's doing an interview -– and they're like, "Oh, Bergman, how are your kids?" He's like, "Oh, they're great. I have eight kids." Then the interviewer has to correct him like, "No, I think you have 10 kids at this point." He's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. Ten kids." He didn't care about what was going on in his life. He just devoted himself to writing and making movies. But the best movie he made, because I never actually saw The Seventh Seal, or I never read any of the script, but I've seen one of his movies 10 times. Literally, this movie is the greatest movie. It's called The Hour of The Wolf.

That one is not included in my book, so I have to check it out.

You have to check it out. It's one of the best movies. It's Ingmar Bergman trying to do horror. It's so good. It's about this dude who has insomnia, and he goes out to the Swedish countryside. He's there with his wife, and he has this little journal where he's drawing, and he's saying, "Oh, this is a woman that I see in my dreams. She has a hat, and when she takes off her hat, her face falls off. These are two kids who have crow faces.” These are his dreams in his drawings. Then in the morning, his wife sees a woman with a hat, and she comes up to her and she says, "You know what happens if I take the hat off?" So it's like his nightmares are coming into reality. It's great. It's about being isolated in the Swedish countryside and all that good shit.

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Sort of like paranoia creeping in because of isolation a little bit, right?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. He was an isolated person, and Sweden is very isolated.

One thing – when I was trying to prepare for this conversation, and trying to think of clever shit to say and not sound stupid when I was talking to you – one of the things that sort of jumped out to me is that you have that experience of spending your very, very early life in Belarus, and then moving to Sweden. And then you're 16, and you get shot into the stratosphere. You travel all over the world in this very important, developmental part of your life. I thought about how that related to your music, this not really having a country, and not being from a place, just being from the wider world, and not really identifying yourself with one thing or another.

Hip hop is very regional, and it's the same in Sweden. There are rappers from the south that have a special accent. There are rappers from the north, and the same in the States. For me, it was just music, it was way wider than that. Since I traveled around with my mom and dad when I was a kid before my sister was born, and then when I'm 16 — I’m everywhere, so I think I just had to figure out what's coming from in here, instead of repping your own town, or trying to get the sound from your city, or whatever. I think it became a lot less place-based and a lot more...

Back when you’re about 17 years old, you have to just start all over again. You've got all this fucking time, and then it's like, in a day, you're 16, 17 years old. You've just smashed it. Then you realize that that's what you've done, and that's done, and now you have to do something else that's got to be as good or better. The fucking pressure of that on you… I don't know if the youth was a benefit, or made it more difficult?

It's a good question. 

So thinking about it in terms of, now you're coming back out of the world just being shut down for however long it's been shut down, and things start to go again, are you tired of having to reload? I mean, is it as hard now as it was then, to just find that thing that you fucking do and remember who you are again in time to turn it up and put it out, or is it like, I've got this, because I've done this so many times before, that it's almost automatic at this point?

You get knocked down. You have to start again. I think that that feeling is like, you get a little addicted to it almost. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of weird, but it's almost like you want to be the underdog. You want to question, can I do this? Can I come up with something better? Can I still go this hard? Can I go harder? Do I have better music in me? Do I have a better video concept? Do I have a better stage? Whatever. Am I still this person?

There was something I wanted to ask you about real quick, just about how you're feeling. What are you most positive on right now? And what are you fucking with? 

What I'm the most positive about right now in my life is boxing. I love boxing. I've been boxing for a minute. It makes me happy. Thaiboy Digital's new album. And new music, the Danish punk band, Ice Age, always doing beautiful things, and Whitearmor's new project, which is called Music for Weddings. That's a perfect album.

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What influenced you on this latest project? 

It's kind of difficult, you know what I mean? For you, are you going to read someone else? Then when you write, maybe you're like, "Shit, oh, their language is in my head. I'm writing like that person," or stuff like that. I'm a bit scared of, okay, so I'm going to make this album. I don't want to be listening to someone that's too similar to me. I was listening to a lot of Joy Division, and then when I was writing lyrics, I was like, "Yo, I'm not Ian Curtis." But sometimes that can be good as well, to know who you are, and be like, "Oh, this is not my style of writing." Or I can take a little from this, I can take a little from that, but at the end of the day, it's still going through your head, and you're still making it.

That reminds me of something you said, and you said it a long time ago. I think it was very honest and, I don't know, for lack of a better word, a “grownup” thing to say. It's just like, "Nothing's made in a vacuum." Right? 

That's a fact, though. That's very much a fact. I was very annoyed for a while, because I'd see all these artists, like Soulja Boy was saying, "Okay, I started this, I started that." Then someone's saying, "But this is taken from Kanye, [he] did this and that." Then I realized, influence, it's like a tree. It has all these roots. So a Soulja Boy song might be influenced from OJ da Juiceman and Gucci Mane, but when it comes out, it's Soulja Boy's way of thinking. Nothing really is made in a vacuum. You can look at black metal, and you know it comes from Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. It's just a Nordic version of it. I love music when you know that someone's trying to do something, but it comes out the other way. Dizzee Rascal, he said it in an interview, he's like, "I just wanted to sound like Three 6 Mafia." And Dizzee Rascal sounds completely different. I think it's interesting to be open, and be like, yo, for what I'm doing right now, I'm listening to a lot of Prince. Obviously, it's not going to sound like Prince, but still, it's good to say what you're inspired by. I think the best musicians always listen to a lot of music. When I listen to Kurt Cobain, and I'm like, "Yo, you know Kurt Cobain was listening to The Beatles." Because it wasn't just grunge, there was a pop element to it, and there was something sensitive. I don't know. I think it's so cocky being like, "Nah, I don't listen to anyone." But when I am in the studio, I'm not listening to anyone else's music. It's just weird. You really have to get in tune to what you're doing, but I feel like it's always good to do a cover. I do covers. I did a cover of The Ronettes’, “Be My Baby”. I was just like, "Okay, this is a way just to do something new."

And that's Spector too, so add a topnotch producer into the bargain.

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I was obsessed with Phil Spector last year. A lot of the music I listened to as a kid, I realized that's all Spector, like The Ronettes … And the fucking Ramones.

Now, he's known as a baddy.

One hundred percent.

Well, the sound, it's crucial. Did you ever fuck with the Shangri-Las at all?

I love the Shangri-Las, man. They got this one song called “Never Again.” It's one of the best songs I've ever heard. The thing is, what’s so interesting to me about music history is, okay, so you got Phil Spector doing Ronettes, doing Shangri-Las, doing Tina Turner. Spector, he's got this very cute teenage sound. It's love songs that are very dark. The Ronettes, she was being hit by him. Then you hear the Ramones, who are these weird guys from Queens, and they're doing rock and roll. But they've only listened to Phil Spector music, so they're just trying to do Ronettes. But they're men, and they're hedonists, and they had a different outlook, so it came out the way it came out. #

Do you feel that Phil Spector influences this latest thing that you've done?

What I'm doing right now, this new album that I'm working on, I listened to so much of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, that I'm doing a lot of choirs, and I'm singing on top of my own abvocals, layering vocals. I was just at a point where I wanted to sing more. And I feel like I always rapped, but my rapping was almost a form of singing or just putting words together. I'm not a technical rapper. When I grew up, I didn't want to be Eminem, with the technicalities or Jedi Mind Tricks. I respected all of them, but I realized that I can't do that. It's not me. What's me? It's the lyrics. It's the way I put it out there. I have a kind of lazy tone to it, and it sounded really good singing, singing kind of lazy. Yeah. I'm just naturally singing more, I guess.

Yeah. Then this “Bliss,” it's pop. Or —

No, no, no. It's pop. It’s no offense to me, that's a good word to me. Ten years ago, I couldn't do pop even if you had a gun to my head. Know what I mean? I just couldn't do it. I didn't know how to. I tried to do pop, and it became like my fucked-up, dark, twisted fantasy version of pop. Now I can do a song like “Bliss,” and I'm very happy to do it.

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