Chart-topping Swedish rapper Einar is shot dead on the streets of Stockholm

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A young Swedish rapper who was murdered on Thursday night on the streets of Stockholm has been seen in a final video mining a throat-slitting motion, just hours before he was shot dead ‘execution style’.

Reports said 19-year-old Einar, whose real name was Nils Kurt Erik Einar Grönberg and who had a number of chart-topping hits in the country, was shot in the head and chest in the port of Hammarby Sjöstad.

It comes three months after rival rapper Yasin was jailed for 10 months for masterminding a foiled plot to kindap Einar, who was then tied up and beaten in a flat weeks later in an attack involving another Swedish rapper Haval Khalil.

The kidnappers posted pictures of Einar to social media while he was being held by them, and claimed online they sexually assaulted him in an attempt to humiliate him. No one was charged with sexual assault in the case.

The motive of the shooting remains unclear but the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported that the rapper had received several threats recently. It said without providing details that Einar was shot from point-blank range ‘execution style.’

According to the Swedish public broadcaster SVT, the rapper’s shooting was gang-related. Officers were alerted to a shooting at 10:50 pm last night, officials said, but paramedics were unable to save the victim, and he died at the scene.  

According to local media, two suspects were seen fleeing the scene, with reports saying Einar was in the company of two other artists when he was murdered. 

In line with usual practice, police have not yet confirmed the identity of the victim. But Sweden’s main media outlets all identified him as rapper Einar, whose full name is Nils Kurt Erik Einar Gronberg.

Police have opened a murder investigation. ‘We are actively working to figure out why it happened and who can be behind it,’ Police spokeswoman Towe Hagg said.

In a video shared by Swedish news website Expresson, reportedly Einar’s last before he was killed, he is shown with another Swedish arties VC Barre.

The pair are shown gesturing to a mobile phone camera, before Einar mines a ‘throat slitting’ motion with his thumb and then points at the camera.

VC Barre is reported to have posted the video to his Instagram stories after Einar’s death, with the caption ‘This is this morning. Rest in peace my brother’, with a crying and heart emoji. 

Einar had reportedly been living under death threats for a long time and his identity was being protected. 

Many of Einar’s songs reference a life of crime, including drugs and weapons. He had public feuds with rival artist Yasin, who in July was jailed for 10 months for his role in a planned kidnapping of Einar in 2020.

The plan was ultimately aborted, but Einar was abducted several weeks later without Yasin’s involvement.

He was beaten, robbed, photographed in humiliating conditions and blackmailed, according to prosecutors. Pictures posted online showed him tied to a radiator and made to wear women’s clothing.

The kidnapping was part of a broader case involving 30 suspects in a criminal network accused of a variety of crimes.

Among the suspects was another rapper, Haval Khalil, who was sentenced in July to two-and-a-half years in prison for complicity in the kidnapping and who has also had public spats with Einar.

The verdict was appealed and the case is currently being heard by the Svea Court of Appeal, which is expected to go on until December.

According to public broadcaster Sveriges Radio, Einar had been summoned to testify in the ongoing trial next week.

Einar had also been called to testify in the original district court trial, but never showed up.

Daily Aftonbladet reported Friday that Einar was living with a ‘price on his head’ after a series of threats against him which had escalated recently.

He himself was one of several suspects arrested for a stabbing at a restaurant in central Stockholm earlier this month. 

Thursday’s shooting is suspected to be linked to gang conflicts in the city – an issue that has been growing over the past decade.

The son of Swedish actress Lena Nilsson, Einar grew up in southern Stockholm and often referred to the criminal scene in the area in his work.

He started his career posting songs to social media, and broke through in 2019 releasing ‘Katten i trakten’ (The cat in the area), which hit number one on Sweden’s singles chart.

Two out of his four albums reached number one in the country’s national record charts. His other two both made it to number two.

He has over a million listeners on the Swedish streaming platform Spotify and has won the Grammis Award, the country’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards. 

Police said that his family had been told of Einar’s death. 

As of 6:00 am on Friday, no one had been arrested in connection with the murder, police said, with an investigation currently on-going.

Officers had set up a crime scene around the rapper’s home, with pictures from the house showing a forensic tent outside the front door and numbered cones on the ground marking potential evidence.

Carina Skagerlind, a spokeswoman for Stockholm police, said a number of people have been brought in for questioning, but said it was not necessarily because they were suspects, but ‘because they may have things to say’.

Police spokesman Ola Österling said overnight police had investigated the area using weapon-seeking dogs, and dogs that specialise in finding DNA evidence.

‘We continue to secure clues and technical evidence with our forensic technicians,’ he said. ‘Several samples will be sent for analysis and are being analysed right now.’

Österling added that forensic investigators had made findings at the crime scene that ‘may provide valuable in the future’, but did not comment on their nature.

He said that investigators were working on the basis that there was more than one person involved in the murder, and that they had received several pieces of information about the suspects.

The spokesman also suggested the murder may have been captured of CCTV.

The case has shocked the Swedish entertainment world and highlighted what officials said was the urgent need to deal with growing criminal gang activity in the Nordic country. 

‘It is a young life that has been lost, and I understand that he meant a lot to many young people. It’s tragic that another life has been lost,’ Prime Minister Stefan Lofven on Friday told news agency TT. 

‘It is terrible,’ Minister of the Interior Mikael Damberg said in a written statement Swedish news website Expressen. ‘A young person has been brutally murdered. My thoughts are with the family and all the people who feel great sadness today. 

‘Now the police’s murder hunt is in full swing,’ he added.

Minister for Gender Equality and Housing Märta Stenevi wrote on Twitter that ‘violence must be stopped’.

‘Another young man has fallen victim to the deadly violence. Behind every headline is a family that has lost a child. I am thinking today of all those who have lost a relative,’ she said.

Christian Democratic party leader Ebba Busch posted on Twitter that if politicians don’t take responsibility to deal with gang-related crime, ‘we can’t stand up for human dignity or security in the country.’

Center Party leader Annie Loof said most people ‘have had enough of the senseless violence and want to see gang crime fought.’ 

Fans and friends expressed their grief on Einar’s social media.

‘Einar was a real brother to me and I will miss him so much. We just released our first record last week and it feels so strange since I spoke to him just a day ago,’ producer Trobi wrote on Instagram.

Another lesser-known Swedish rapper, 23-year-old Rozh Shamal, was also killed in a 2019 gangland shooting.

Sweden has in recent years struggled to rein in rising shootings and bombings – usually settlings of scores by gangs and organised crime involved in drug trafficking.

‘It is a young life that has been lost, and I understand that he meant a lot to many young people. It’s tragic that another life has been lost,’ Prime Minister Stefan Lofven on Friday told news agency TT.

As of October 15, 273 shootings had been recorded with 40 people dead so far in 2021, according to police statistics.

During 2020, 47 people were killed in 366 shootings in the country of 10.3 million inhabitants. 

In July, two young children were accidentally shot and injured by unknown criminals in a suburb just outside Stockholm and in August three people were wounded in a shooting in the southern city of Kristianstad that was linked to gang criminality.

A report by the Swedish national council for crime prevention said earlier this year that Sweden is the only European country where fatal shootings have risen significantly since 2000, primarily because of the violent activities of organized criminal gangs. 

On Friday, party leaders from across the political spectrum called for action.

‘We are in a national emergency and now political leadership is needed that will take back control,’ the leader of the Left Party Nooshi Dadgostar said on Twitter.

The leader of the centre-right Centre Party, Annie Loof, echoed those sentiments.

‘There are many of us who grieve, who have had enough of the senseless violence and want to fight gang crime,’ Loof tweeted.