Steve 'Flash' JuonYou can’t discuss “Jonatan” without bringing up the fact Yung Lean is white and Swedish at some point, so let’s get both things out of the way in the opening paragraph. Even though one of my friends sardonically remarked “there’s never been a better time to have white privilege” over the weekend, we can at least say the rapper born Jonatan Håstad is acutely aware of his privilege while participating in rap music and hip-hop culture. I’m even willing to bet being European has something to do with this.
While white people in North America seem to constantly deny they have privilege even when clearly benefiting from it, their European ancestors are more comfortable with acknowledging their own fucked up history instead of using ridiculous double speak like “forced migration.” We don’t progress as human beings by pretending white people haven’t gained great wealth and power at the expense of people who were physically enslaved and culturally raped. If you’re white and want to participate in a black culture without being able to be honest about that, just get the fuck out.
Yung Lean has the baseline decency to say he’s a white guy and benefits from that inequality, and use some of his wealth and fame to tip the scales back just a bit. The sad truth is no one person ever can. No reparations, no matter how large, will ever undo that damage. It can also look like “white guilt” where someone with privilege just throws money around as a placebo pill they can swallow to feel better. I think Yung Lean consumes plenty of pills (and lean) recreationally but I won’t say he’s naive enough to think he can buy his way into acceptance in the culture. He can only do what Marshall Mathews did 30 years ago — acknowledge everything is fucked, pay his dues over time, take his lumps and earn respect through his sincere commitment to rap.
Do we even call “Jonatan” rap music though? That’s always been my biggest stumbling block with Yung Lean. He calls it rap, the people who listen to rap today will, and if you’ve listened to anybody from Future to Fetty Wap in the last ten years you will too. It’s the modern version of rap where you sing your lyrics, and when I was growing up those were two completely different things. On rare occasions though I actually hear Lean spitting something close to verses in a traditional way of stringing together thoughts into bars and rhymes, such as the Rami Dawod & Oneohtrix Point Never produced “Terminator Symphony.”
“In this glass castle, running out of luck, who to talk?
Whatever comes down gotta come up
Since I popped I’ve been feeling stuck, hypnotized by the sunset
I don’t wanna feel, I don’t wanna run, I don’t wanna kneel
Take my soul, take me
Take me to the fields, just to set me free”
It’s refreshing for me and it makes me regret that I can only call it “passable.” He might be a poet laureate in his native Swedish, but rapping in English I can say he’s not tripping over his words or speaking complete nonsense. It helps that he’s clearly talking about his own emotions and feelings on the song, not trying to pull down loquacious words from the tree of complexity just to bear lyrical fruit. That’s for pretentious album reviewers with their own privilege to sort out. If I’m being honest I may prefer hearing his singing. I’m very used to it by now and it fits his emo style better. He’s the white, Swedish version of Jarad Higgins on songs like “Changes” and it fits him like a glove.
Intentionally or not this “Jonatan” has discussed a lot of issues with white people making black music. At the end of the day Yung Lean can get a pass from me, but when it comes to how other people feel, it’s not my pass to give or my right to say he deserves it. I think he’s sincere, I think he means well, but I could still be proven wrong. His consistency alone tells me that this is his true passion. He’s made music like this since the beginning, and whether it’s my kind of rap music or not, he’s stuck to it. He’s even gotten a huge following from it. Yung Lean’s fans will appreciate what he did here because it’s more of the same, and I think that just maybe, I appreciate him slightly more because of that too. I’m still not riding to it in my car though. If I’m feeling sad and blue I’ll put on “Jonatan” but if I want to enjoy myself it’s time for U.G.K., OutKast, Little Brother, Kendrick Lamar, et cetera. This isn’t that. It’s the emo rap of 2025 from a Swedish guy who understands the weird position he’s in.