NEWS
Refused have cancelled their final festival performance in Sweden due to frontman Dennis Lyxzén suffering from “a massive heart attack”.
The Swedish punk band originally announced the news in March, stating they would be playing at Stockholm’s Rosendal Garden Party on Friday, June 14 alongside Turnstile, M.I.A and others.
However, Lyxzén took to social media to announce their festival appearance was cancelled. On Instagram, Lyxzén took a photo of himself in a hospital bed, explaining he had “a massive heart attack at my hotel room” that morning, calling it “extremely painful and wildly scary.”
“Thanks [to] the wonderful doctors and nurses at the Uppsala hospital I’m still around to fight another day,” he added. “Under the circumstances I feel ok. Sore and tired and really shook up. I [sic] real really hate cancelling show but the doctor said no rock for a couple of weeks.”
Lyxzén then wrote that due to his heart attack, the Refused show was cancelled, adding that it was “a complete bummer as I was really looking forward to it. But hopefully I/we will be able to make up to you soon.”
He concluded his post: “The good news is that with medication I can get back to my rocking self hopefully sooner than later. Life is weird and precious. Take care of each and tell your loved ones that you love them.”
The band’s last release was their 2020 EP ‘The Malignant Fire‘. It was their fourth release since reuniting in 2014, following the albums ‘Freedom’ and ‘War Music’, and the EP ‘Servants Of Death’.
Speaking to NME in 2019, Refused’s frontman discussed how the band’s politics had changed over the years.
“I think if you’re static in your political ideas, that’s not a good thing,” he said. “I think the foundation, with me, is more-or-less the same though. We’re still very anti-capitalist, pro-feminist and the like. Sadly, I think the ideas we were talking about in 1995 are still pretty relevant today. I think what’s changed for me is that I don’t take every fight anymore.
“When I was younger I was, ‘fuck this, fuck that, fuck everything’ and now I’m older, I just can’t do that. I’m more focused in my politics now. Oh, and I dunno, when we were younger, being straightedge was very important to us because drinking was such an integral part of the culture we found ourselves opposed to. Now we’re older it’s not as important to us anymore.”NME reviewed their album ‘War Music’ back in 2019, giving the record five stars and calling it “a perfect microcosm of everything brilliant punk ever was – and what it can continue to be.”
In other news, Refused were one of the many Swedish artists who have called for Israel to be banned from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
NEWS
DX EXCLUSIVE - Yelawolf once toured Europe with Eminem and Odd Future in 2013, and he vividly remembers Tyler, The Creator flexing how deep his admiration for Em went.
Talking to HipHopDX‘s Jeremy Hecht in a conversation published on Tuesday (June 25), Yela laughed as he recalled Tyler rapping every single word to every song Em performed on the trek – joking that it was as if Tyler was looking to prove that he knew the Detroit legend’s music better than his tourmate, despite Yela being signed to Shady.
“I remember Tyler mouthing every single word of every song Marshall played,” he said. “I remember that vividly. We were all by the soundboard and Tyler just knew every word to every song and he made sure that I knew he knew.
“[It was as if he was] like, ‘You’re signed to Eminem? I’ll rap this whole song right to your face. You don’t know this song.’”
The Grammy-winner appeared on an episode of De La Soul‘s Apple Music 1 show Art Official Intelligence Radio in March to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the group’s classic debut 3 Feet High and Rising.
During the conversation, Tyler reflected on coming of age in the early 2000s and how Roc-A-Fella and Shady Records subconsciously laid the blueprint for his own future rap crew.
“Man, I grew up in the year 2000,” he began. “So I’m looking at like eight, turning nine. So let’s say it’s 2002, 10 turning 11.
“You’ve got Jay with the whole Roc-A-Fella, you’ve got Shady, Aftermath, you have all these different crews that felt like family. Nas was bringing Queensbridge group like Jungle and them out. N-ggas had this thing. So in my formative years, I’m just watching these crews.”
He added: “And I’m from Los Angeles, so gang culture is already a prevalent thing, but I feel like just the main layer of that is a family-knitted thing like, ‘No, these are my boys, you come with me.’”
Tyler, The Creator went on describe Odd Future — which also counted Earl Sweatshirt, Frank Ocean and Domo Genesis among its ranks, as well as side groups like The Internet — as a collective of “outcasts” who were all “black sheep.”
“So when I was making Odd Future, outside of the magazine thing, it just actually felt like family for a bunch of outcasts,” he said. “Everyone in Odd Future was the black sheep of their family. So us coming together and just like, ‘Nah, fuck y’all.’
“Who’s getting the opportunity first? It’s the person right next to me. It’s the family right next to me. And I was really on that for a while, and a lot of that is just because of growing up with the idea of rap crews.
“I was too young for the Native Tongues, all of that stuff in real time. I had to learn about that as I got older.
“So seeing people get Roc-A-Fella chains was like, ‘Oh, you’re part of the family.’ So I think just subconsciously emulating the sentiment that they held was easy.”
