Svenska Akademien plays ragga with Swedish lyrics on broad Scanian dialect. Ever since Peps Persson it has been obvious how surprisingly well the Scanian dialect goes together with reggae and ragga – as if Scania would lie next to Jamaica. And Peps is an obvious influence on Svenska Akademien, in the dialect and the music as well as in the humoristic critical political content.
Svenska Akademien, coming from Sweden’s reggae-centre Landskrona, has three vocalists: General Knas with mighty big fat bass voice, the higher-pitched squabbling Sture Allén (the younger), and Leia Gärtner on song.
Ragga is excellent live music with its simple but effective beats it is designed to be played loud for an audience and for making them dance. The nine piece strong band knows how to get a good groove going and Mejeriet, full of high-school hip hoppers, keeps on dancing during the whole concert. The atmosphere was extra good on “Mål i mun” and “Kärlekssoldater”, Visually though this is not much to write home about.
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The light, stage and clothes are boring and could easily have been cooler to help the concert guests keep the attention alive the whole show through. That said, General Knas and Sture Allén are a tight tag team and they are definitely entertaining to watch as the take turns to rock the mike. The little Sture Allén’s erratic movements with crazy jumps high up in the air are also a feast for the eyes. The biggest drawback really is the sound which is not that good: the voices become too blurred which makes it hard to hear the words. That’s no fun when it is a band with as clever and fun lyrics as Svenska Akademien’s.
Svenska Akademien has talked about how they want to be an eclectic band and not confine themselves to be a downright ragga band. If they let that be heard more in the music (mixing in some influences from those punk bands several of the members have been in before maybe), to give some more variation a concert with them could be really exciting. In their best moments Svenska Akademien makes you want to start the revolution right now. I am looking forward to a bigger and better Svenska Akademien in the future.
/Erik Sandberg
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