For nearly half his life, the Swedish musician Yung Lean has been an internet curio in search of solid ground.
Discovered first on YouTube as a foul-mouthed, baby-faced rapper, he was reverent of his American online contemporaries, but eager to build his own thing with friends outside of Stockholm.
As the ringleader of a clique called Sad Boys, Lean, born Jonatan Leandoer Håstad, chose an independent path over major-label promises in the mid-2010s, and quickly became a cult sensation for the way his music mixed deadpan cynicism, teenage hedonism and psychedelic beauty.
The crew, which also featured the producers Yung Sherman and Gud, helped expand the genre of underground hip-hop known as cloud rap, for its ethereal textures and moodiness, and would go on to collaborate with Travis Scott, Frank Ocean and Charli XCX.
Across more than a dozen albums and mixtapes, Lean also came to experiment with folk, emo and post-punk, as on his latest album, “Jonatan,” released earlier this year, while becoming a sort of Zelig-like figure in contemporary music — your favorite artist’s favorite artist’s favorite artist.
It hasn’t always been smooth. At 18, while living and recording in Miami, Lean suffered a psychiatric break brought on by drug use and his undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which coincided with the death of his manager in a 2015 car accident. An extended, jagged climb through depression and recovery followed, with Lean ultimately channeling his energies into even more modes of expression, including visual art, boxing and now, acting.
“I’m 29 now, I’m almost 30,” Lean said in a rare interview on Popcast, the New York Times music show. “I’ve done a lot of work with myself. I’ve gotten myself into very strange situations and I’ve done the work.”
Now, he is ready for the creative and professional sprawl that his solid artistic foundation has afforded him. “I like the idea of selling out, but you have to sell out at the right time,” Lean said, “when your heart is ready for it.”
In addition to an ongoing tour in support of “Jonatan,” he made his feature film debut alongside Vincent Cassel, Chris Evans and Anya Taylor-Joy in the Romain Gavras-directed “Sacrifice,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
On Popcast, Lean discussed his latest creative pursuits; the winding journey that led him to this moment; and the wisdom he can share from the other side. The full interview can be watched in full here or listened to below. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
JOE COSCARELLI When you look back at the first wave of attention that came, in part, from you being a cherubic young white kid rapping nasty stuff online, do you feel nostalgia, pride, fear for your younger self?
YUNG LEAN I’m really happy about it. We grew up on Nas, Wu-Tang, all of these things we idolized. Then the internet hits and there’s Odd Future on Tumblr, and you can see, oh, this is real — these kids, just from posting their stuff, now they’re out. Lil B, Main Attrakionz, SpaceGhostPurrp, ASAP Rocky, Kreayshawn — there’s a world we can fit into or make our own version of it.
When we came out here, it was just so much. I’m like a hedgehog — I had my sticks out. So when you’d have like a hundred people in a small backstage, I think the natural thing was just to snort a lot of Xanax and smoke Backwoods 24-7 and drink as much as you can. Not because it was the thing to do, but how do I cope with being in this room, and then the next room? People are whispering in my ear, you should do this, you should do that, and you get into strange situations.
JON CARAMANICA Was it shocking to be taken seriously by the people who you’d been watching from a distance?
LEAN In a way, yeah, it was surreal. But then I realized, if I was them and I’d seen this swaggy 16-year-old Swedish kid with these beats — they’re like the best beats — I would say the same thing, I’d also salute.
COSCARELLI When did you start rapping in English?
LEAN Grade six, seven and eight, I lived in Hanoi and I went to an international school because my mom works in human rights. It was a mix of Vietnamese kids, kids from Korea, America, Kenya, Sweden. And I felt very alienated at that time.
I got really isolated and found my hobbies — I’d be on the school computer downloading albums on Pirate Bay. I’d find Madlib, then I find J Dilla, then I find Lord Quas. I just did my whole hip-hop history and electronic music history, punk history. I did graffiti and from there I started writing lyrics in English.
COSCARELLI You could have signed a major-label deal at 16 and moved to L.A. and taken a different path. How real was that temptation?
LEAN To be real, because I am from a middle-class family in Stockholm, I knew that like, I’m gonna die if I take a major-label deal and get a house in L.A. Then you’d have people coming in and out, clout lords and clout demons. There’s a way of looking at things in Stockholm where, if you have enough and then just a little more, then you’re good.
COSCARELLI It’s a culture of modesty.
LEAN It’s a culture of modesty and not because like, oh, we’re so [expletive] humble, look at us. It’s because mentally, you’re just going to crash and burn. It’s self-protection and it is longevity. If I had that house in L.A. at 16, 17, I don’t think I’d be here today.
CARAMANICA You haven’t done much like this interview. The last time was almost a decade ago, after that very dark stretch in Miami. What was your awakening during that period?
LEAN In a way, it was like God saying, if you want to play with the dark powers, here they are, the door is open. I think for Barron [Machat, Lean’s manager at the time], he was addicted to Xanax and none of us knew what Xanax was. We were snorting it, mixing it with all kinds of drugs, and Barron was unlucky enough to drive. It was an accident and that was horrible.
But I took a lot of [expletive] for it. I was screaming for help — and you’re telling that kid that he’s killed someone. That makes no sense, that’s [expletive] disgusting.
CARAMANICA When did you have your moment of lucidity and say I need to go home?
LEAN I was forced into it. I was too young and I was in the downward spiral and maybe subconsciously I wanted to go insane, you know? I romanticized drugs since a young age and I romanticized insanity. I liked artists like Daniel Johnston, who’d been manic, and these Charles Manson-type weird characters. I wanted to see if I could push myself to the edge.
And that’s a very privileged thing to do, now that I look back on it, but it’s also like I had to get myself in that place in order to get out. But I didn’t have any sort of moment of lucidity where I said let’s get out of here — it was Benjamin, it was Bladee who did all that, and then my father and Bladee got me home and then I was in recovery for a long time.
COSCARELLI When did you feel firm enough to be able to enter this phase where you’re acting, you’re touring again, you’re painting and you have a boxing practice that’s important to you?
LEAN Once I took control. And then when I got sober, basically two years ago, when I stopped drinking [the herbal drug] kratom. Through all of this, I was always dependent on either Tramadol or kratom. So I got completely sober, lost a bunch of weight. Everything got a little silly again. You realize it’s not that deep, any of this.
COSCARELLI It sounds like it was pretty deep.
LEAN It was deep at one point, yeah, it was heavy. Let me rephrase: All the stuff that went on internally and Barron passing, all that sucked. But this circus of fame, attainment, clout, doing shows — it’s like a simulation you can go into and not have to take it so seriously, you know?
CARAMANICA Was the choice to go fully sober triggered by a negative incident?
LEAN The kratom was like — I really touched the heroin aspect of it. You think it’s like this legal, green, silly thing that you can just do, but I would just lay in vomit. I said, [expletive] it, this is disgusting. It’s not sexy. If you’ve glorified this stuff, you’ve got to face it, too.
I was so afraid of just sitting in my apartment, watching a film and not doing it. My psychologist said try it for two, three months. I tried three months and then that’s been two years now.
COSCARELLI At Charli XCX’s wedding to George Daniel of the 1975, you performed “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by the Stooges. Your choice or the couple’s? Because that’s a crazy wedding song.
LEAN I love that song so much. That was mine and Yung Gud’s coke song for a long time. And also my sober song. But it was actually Charli’s. I wanted to sing more like Velvet Underground, “I’ll Be Your Mirror” or something.
CARAMANICA What is it like to sacrifice some part of your independence to be on the team that makes a feature film?
LEAN Working on an album is like, you pretend that you’re Einstein in this little cabin and you’re going to figure out this equation no one’s ever heard. But making a film, it’s like 300 people, everyone is working their hardest, like an ant colony. I thought that was beautiful.
COSCARELLI Are you proud of your performance?
LEAN I’m super proud. I’ve never acted like this, with lines and action scenes, and at one point there was this French D.O.P. [director of photography] who said to Romain, “Oh, this new Swedish actor has a very avant-garde way of doing it.” And Romain just starts laughing: “He isn’t an actor, he’s a rapper!”
CARAMANICA That reminds me of how I received your early rapping. Obviously you were paying attention to rappers who were breaking rules, Lil B or Odd Future. Did you consciously try to bring that to your acting as well, or was it just that you didn’t know what you were doing?
LEAN A magician never reveals his trick [laughs]. No, I think both of them were subconsciously. When I see like a Max B or like a Kool Keith or like Gucci [Mane], someone who stands out and who says, [expletive] it, that’s who I like. And that’s what I like with actors, too — a Dennis Hopper. Hip-hop and punk, all of this is a spirit.
COSCARELLI Do you feel a responsibility to tell young people who are, like you were, romanticizing drugs or mental illness that you can be a vibrant creative on proper medication?
LEAN There are certain types of bipolar anti-psychotics that don’t numb you down or take away creativity. Even when I was really manic and psychotic, I wasn’t more creative. I was just more sloppy.
I guess the 16-year-old Lean would find it so lame that I’m sitting here and saying it, but it really is the truth. You can be swaggy without being drunk all the time or doing pills.
I think a lot of that comes from some sort of stress or early childhood trauma that you haven’t really figured out. But at one point, you’re gonna have to figure it out. I’m not saying I have it figured out. Right now I feel very close, but who knows, if I get too close to the sun, I might get punished.
Jon Caramanica is a pop music critic who hosts “Popcast,” The Times’s music podcast.
Joe Coscarelli is a culture reporter for The Times who focuses on popular music and a co-host of the Times podcast “Popcast (Deluxe).”
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