Eskilstuna ICORN City of Refuge welcomes hip-hop artist Sayed Elyas Zahin
In December 2023, hip-hop artist, musician, and media manager Sayed Elyas Zahin from Afghanistan arrived in Sweden and took up a 2-year ICORN residency in Eskilstuna. Zahin’s music deals with social and political issues, including gender inequality and opposition to terrorist groups.
Four months ago, Eskilstuna ICORN City of Refuge welcomed Afghan hip-hop artist, musician, and media manager Sayed Elyas Zahin as its third ICORN resident. Since arriving in Sweden, Zahin has continued his music and designer work. In February 2024, Zahin performed at the 2024 Folk och Kultur (People and Culture) convention in Eskilstuna.
Since starting his musical career in 2014, Zahin has performed on TV and collaborated with other musicians and artists in Afghanistan. Between 2018-2019, he participated in the 14th season of ‘Afghan Star’, a singing competition broadcast by TOLO TV and one of the most popular TV shows in Afghanistan. As a result, Zahin gained recognition in the Afghan music scene and continued to perform on other popular TV shows, including ‘Attack Fight Night’, a free fighting TV show.
In 2019, Zahin also founded the first Afghan modelling agency ‘Modelstan’, working to develop the country’s fashion industry. In his role as Media Manager, Zahin promoted the agency and its beauty pageants, including ‘Mr and Miss Afghanistan’, something that had not been done since the 1990s. He also performed his music at events organised by ‘Modelstan’. Alongside his music and media manager engagements, Zahin also collaborated with the youth theater group Sundance and worked as freelance designer.
Performing hip-hop music, appearing on TV, and being involved with beauty pageants meant that Sayed Elyas Zahin became a target for the Taliban as well as conservative parts of Afghan society. After the fall of Kabul in 2021, Zahin went into hiding and left Afghanistan.
Eskilstuna ICORN City of Refuge
Eskilstuna joined ICORN in 2014 and has since hosted three ICORN residents- journalist and blogger Ali Kalalei from Iran, writer, poet, and musician Ola Housamo from Syria, and hip-hop artist Sayed Elyas Zahin from Afghanistan.
The Folk och Kultur convention is closely linked to Eskilstuna’s work as an ICORN City of Refuge, organised in close collaboration between the Municipality of Eskilstuna and Region Sörmland. Folk och Kultur aims at inspiring conversations on the importance of art and culture in democratic civic societies. The convention was initiated by Länsteatrarna i Sverige, Regional Musik i Sverige and Länsmuseernas Samarbetsråd in 2018.
