In his passport it it is written Ibrahim Erik Lundin Banda, but as an artist he goes by only half: Erik Lundin. That was the half that worked best during his previous day job as a phone salesman, the name that on paper hides the fact that Erik Lundin’s father is from Gambia.

But when seen next to his passport picture, which adorns the cover of his debut EP, his name poses the question of what a Swede actually looks like. The title track Suedi puts words on an experience that many Swedes share: the experience of being born and raised in Sweden but still being seen as an immigrant because of the color of your skin. The experience of always being seen as on your way back home to a place where you’ve never lived—even though that’s where your family’s from, and where you’re always seen as a Swede.

In the past Erik Lundin went under the alias Eboi and wrote his lyrics in English. Now writing in Swedish his lyrics are sharper, simple but with excellent observations of a country with an identity crisis. The verses seem to spring out of him with no effort at all, rhyme after rhyme like a poetic machine. When he rapped a capella for ten minutes on Swedish television he immediately became a phenomenon and moved the host Hiba Daniel to tears.

In a column the Swedish journalist Jan Gradvall announced Erik Lundin as the obvious choice for the winner of the Swedish Grammy for best lyrics, or in Erik Lundin’s own words: “My verses take me to Addis, yours take you to Bagis.”