Adam Tensta Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 2nd 2010 11:24PM by Evan C. Jones
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Raised in the Tensta projects outside Stockholm, Swedish rapper Adam Momodou Eriksson Taal -- better known by his stage name Adam Tensta -- is on a mission to disprove people's conceptions about his home area. His album 'It's a Tensta Thing' won the 2008 Swedish Grammis Award for Best Dance/Hip-Hop/Soul Album. Spinner recently caught up with Tensta to discuss his introduction to music, his down low love of the rock band Europe and his performance at SXSW this year.

Describe your sound in your own words.

First of all, I have to explain that I take inspiration from so many different types of genres that we've been struggling to name what I do. In the end, we decided to call it bloc pop. It's a mix of dance music, house music and hip-hop music. It's different inspirational genres. We call it bloc pop, but it's a mix of dance music, house music and hip-hop music, basically.

How did you start performing music?

[laughs] That's a long story. My homies got into music before me. A couple of dudes had actually recorded a couple of songs and I just joined them. I've always been writing lyrics and writing poems but didn't always know what it was supposed to be pure and unaccompanied by music. I've always been around it; my big brother played hip-hop music in the stereo and everywhere I looked was hip-hop music, so I just fell into it. I was maybe 17 or 18-years-old, but I've always listened to hip-hop music.

What are your musical influences?

Since I didn't get to choose what I was listening to, I was listening to what my brother played in the stereo, what we were seeing on MTV or the music channels in Sweden. I was looking into everything, from Michael Jackson to Boyz II Men to Europe, a rock group in Sweden, and everything they played on TV. I remember seeing a Salt N Pepa video; that was crazy. That song to this day is still one of the best songs -- 'Push It.'

How did you come up with your stage name?

Tensta is a project outside Stockholm about 20 minutes from the central parts of Stockholm. In these projects -- it's not just Tensta, but all over the place in the outskirts of the city -- there are areas with a lot of immigrants and a lot of mixed ethnicities, so to speak. So growing up here, there's Somalians, there's Arab people, Turkish people, Yugoslavians, people from all over the world, so you learn a lot of stuff growing up here. What we also learned is that we are on the outside of Swedish society, outcasts on the street. We don't get any jobs anywhere else than in the projects. We don't go to school anywhere else. We just don't venture out, and this is what they teach us: institutionalized segregation.

One day I was on Google and I typed in the word "Tensta" and all the words that came up were negative words: immigration, welfare, crime statistics -- all these negative words. I just wanted to make something different out of what people already know Tensta was about, so I took the name Adam Tensta, [since I'm] from here and showing people that it can be done, to do something positive.

What's your biggest vice?

[laughs] I dunno -- everyone has a weakness. My weakness would be girls in that case. Because I work hard and I don't drink or do drugs, I tend to have a soft-spot for women. If I was to say something, maybe I sleep one hour too much every day.

What's in your festival survival kit?

Festival item number one is clean underwear.

Who was your first celeb crush?

I would say Yasmine Bleeth from 'Baywatch.' That was way back though.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

I would say Europe, the rock band. An 80s based rock band. I dunno if you've heard this song 'The Final Countdown.' Yeah, I listened to that s--- a lot growing up, but all my friends were into different stuff so I kept it on the low.

Beatles or Stones?

Beatles.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

A lot of not so crazy stuff goes down, but crazy s---? I've only been on tour since 2008, so not that much experience, even though I did 270 shows the first year. I actually hadn't played too many festivals until the summer, when we did all the festivals in Sweden. But I don't know, I haven't seen anything scandalous yet. I'll have to save that one for SXSW to see what goes down. I'm hoping to see something.

Evan C. Jones is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.