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

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 in Swedish television he immediately became a phenomenon and moved the host Hiba Daniel to tears.