R’n’b-star Usher visits low-income suburbs in Sweden

Linn Elmervik

Last night in Sweden Usher showed up in low-income suburbs of Stockholm.

The youth recreation leader Khadra Abdullahi was there when the popstar visited.

– Usher was dancing, being social and he received so much love, she says.

The situation in the low-income suburbs of Stockholm has even been discussed in The White House, for example by president Donald Trump.

Yesterday the american popstar Usher, 39, visited the suburbs Rinkeby and Tensta to make his own opinion of the areas. He’s currently in Sweden and partied at Stureplan earlier this week.

On Friday the artist went out on a hotel balcony in central Stockholm to dance with graduating students that were partying in the streets. Later in the evening rumours told that he was visiting the restaurant Gott Gott Grillen in Tensta.

Participated in the Brilliant Minds-conference

Evangelos Papatheodorou, 28, was in Tensta to visit his father when he got the news.

– Since my father lives close to the restaurant I went there and there he was. I asked what he was doing in Tensta and he told me that he wanted to check out how the area had been coping with all the violence and that he was going to Rinkeby later. We didn’t get the chance to speak that much since it got a bit messy with a lot of people who wanted to take photos, he says.

Earlier on Friday Usher participated in the conference Brilliant Minds at Grand Hotel in Stockholm. The producer Quincy Jones III was there as well.

After meeting residents in Tensta Usher continued to Rinkeby. His visit left the Rinkeby-singer Sherihan ”Cherrie” Hersi in chock.

”Can anyone tell me what Usher and Jesse Williams are doing outside my house in Rinkeby?”, she tweeted.

”So much joy”

The actor Jesse Williams is also participating in the Brilliant Minds-conference and on Thursday he visited the café Mynta in Rinkeby, where two brothers were shot to death in 2016.

During the last years the gang conflicts and shootings has increased in both Rinkeby and Tensta. Last Wednesday night, five people were injured in a shooting in Tensta.

The youth recreation leader Khadra Abdullahi works at the Rinkeby youth recreation-centre. She says she will never forget the reactions of the youths when Usher showed up outside her workplace.

– I get chills just thinking about it. There was so much joy and fellowship. Usher was dancing, being social and he received so much love. And the youths were so happy, I think that it made their year, se says.