Jireel about the new album “Luanda”

People in bathrobes move in shivering clusters outside the windows facing the heated pool and further down to the sea. Jireel leans back on a pink sofa, adjusts his cap and inhales the scent of chlorine. Normally he lives in Mallorca, but this week the 24-year-old hip-hop artist has instead installed himself in an elegant spa hotel at the far end of Lidingö – far from the city center’s lavish offices and even further from his hometown of Rågsved.

He says that it felt good to get away from the “Stockholm bubble”. In Mallorca, he can work in peace and with a different perspective on both music and life.

– In Stockholm, you hang out with the same industry people all the time, and it becomes easy for everyone to think the same. Abroad, I can think in new ways and that has been very positive for me, he explains.

As an example, he takes his upcoming album “Luanda”, named after the capital of his first homeland, Angola, and influenced by both the music genre kizomba – after the word “party” in Kimbundu, one of Angola’s national languages ​​- and barefoot beach parties in Palma. Although Jireel has made a name for himself for a Drake-inspired, poppier rap, the sound is now even sunnier. He could never have created that in a Stockholm where spring refuses to come.

– No, it sounds like it comes from a warm, happy environment, even if the lyrics are deep. It is more genuine, more “premium” than the last album, with more instruments. Each song is like a world of its own where you might want to cry to the lyrics, but rock to the music.

Jireel Lavia Pereira was born in Angola in 2000, grew up in the Stockholm suburb of Rågsved and released his first song, “Här & nu”, already at the age of fifteen. Nearly ten years later, with six albums, several Grammy wins and a string of sold-out arena concerts behind him, he smiles when he thinks of the teenage guy who wandered into the studio and just drove.

– I had no experience then, no idea about anything, I just had fun and did what felt right. Today, what I write is more mature and more thought out. I want to release music that takes people, and me, somewhere; that makes us grow.

Can you still miss the feeling you had as a fifteen-year-old?

– Yes, of course. But that’s the best thing about making music: you can let it go in any direction you want, regardless of what you’re doing at the moment.

Over the years, he has also learned how to make the music sound exactly the way he wants. In addition to releasing “Luanda” on his own label Records by Moty, he has made large parts of the album on his own. He says that he sat by himself in the apartment in Palma and “mucked and tinkered”, that it was difficult at times but above all a liberation.

– Because I have such a clear vision for each song, and it’s only me who hears what’s in my head.

What’s it like to be in that head?

– Chaos, haha. It’s always music, a lot of thoughts and lines of text that I have to write down in my mobile’s notes in the middle of the night.

Ever since the debut Jireel above all looked inward when he wrote his lyrics. So also on “Luanda”, where the exploration of relationships is deepened. On the title track, he sings about being taken for granted and on “Minns du?”, a duet with Thomas Stenström, about a lost love that has become “the rhyme in my text”.

– The lyrics are about my love life and a little about my everyday life with my family. I always write about things I go through, or things that people around me go through, and try to be as genuine as possible.

Are you used to exposing yourself like that?

– Yes, especially now that I know how it is received, that people recognize themselves and get in touch.

When I ask him to name a song that has received a particularly strong response, he thinks for a moment before choosing “Dagar i regn” from 2021 – a song about street violence.

– It is about the fact that even if you have chosen one path, you can always choose another. I think it is the one of my songs that “touched” the most.

After ten years as an artist, Jireel has seen many Swedish rappers come and go. Although he has never been in their midst, he has followed the discussions about “gangster rap” closely. It has been a part of Swedish hip-hop, he says, but the hip-hop genre cannot be generalized – it is too changeable, too broad.

– Everyone has their own story and way of telling things. Some are more raw, some not. It goes in waves. For me, it’s just about being true to yourself.

It is a lesson that he has nurtured since he was fifteen years old, and which today he wants to spread to others through his record company. He started it when he realized that he and his childhood friends could do exactly what major record companies do – but in a different way. So far, they have named one artist, the Halmstad rapper W8, and more are on the way.

– I want to help young artists, guide them and encourage them to be themselves, says Jireel.

At major record companies, that encouragement is often neglected, he believes.

– They have such a uniform image of how things should work, but these days anything can work and therefore the most important thing is to just be yourself and see where it leads.

How are you as a record label boss?

– I don’t like that thing, being the boss. I want my record label to feel like a family where everyone gets to make their voice heard. Instead of bringing in ten artists right away and not knowing how to navigate them, I want to start with a few and let it take its time.

But, he promises: This is just the starter. The plans for the record company are big and many. First up is the premiere release “Luanda”, which lands on streaming services on April 26.

– I hope people create memories for this album. That it may live long.

Read more about music.