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Artist
Ken Ring
12+ albums
swedishraphip hopHip-Hopswedish hiphop
about
Ken Kiprono Ring is a Swedish hip-hop artist from Hässelby, Stockholm. During the late nineties he emerged as one of the first rappers in the second Swedish hip-hop wave. He released his debut album, "Vägen Tillbaka", as one of the first hip-hop albums to be released in Swedish, during the spring of 1999. To this date he has released 15 albums, including two that was made in collaboration with Norwegian producer/legend Tommy Tee. Ken rew up in Hässelby with his Kenyan mother. She passaed away when Ken was 14 due to cancer, which left Ken homeless. Ken Ring got his big break with the autobiographical song "Mamma", released in 1999 and featured on his first album, then under his former alias "Ken". Unlike most other Swedish rappers Ken attracted a lot of controversy, because of his tendency to bring out social issues such as crime, jail, drugs and ethnic integration in his songs. Especially controversial was his song "Spräng regeringen" (translated "blow up the goverment"), when he performed it at the Stockholm Waterfestival, just a stones throw away from where the royal family lives. In this song he is perceived as promoting the murder of the royal family as well as the rape of Swedish princess Madeleine. Although he himself claims this to be a strictly rhetorical message, Swedish media and opinion were unforgiving. Ken was shunned from social events and popular media for a long time. Ken Ring was sentenced in early 2006 to six months in prison for aggravated fraud. Just
