Yung Lean: “I’m not really into My Little Pony”

At first, Yung Lean’s Yoshi City video is just like any other young up-and-coming rapper’s. The teenager hangs out of a moving car surrounded by his crew. There’s a phone in his hand, a fag in his mouth. But the familiar rap tropes are scrambled into a kind of super-internet pastiche. His ride’s a sensible Smart car; his crew, sullen adolescents from Stockholm who call themselves the Sad Boys. Beside him sits not Cristal but a bright pink My Little Pony. And there’s Lean himself: a chubby-cheeked cherub, more Directioner than Chicago South Side, who deadpans about being a “lonely cloud”. “We just thought it was funny,” he says later. “I’m not really into My Little Pony, I’m not a ‘Brony’, just to clear that up.”