Swedish paper to boycott Chris Brown concert

Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) has chosen not to review the upcoming Chris Brown concert in Stockholm due to the rapper’s conviction for beating up then girlfriend Rihanna three years ago.

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SvD columnist Kristin Lundell wrote that she was “disgusted” that the artist would be treated to cheering crowds in Stockholm's Ericsson Globe Arena on Monday.

“Hopefully I won’t have to read about it as I hope that no papers will review the concert,” she wrote in her column.

Lundell suggested that the papers might instead publish some statistics on violence against women.

“Three years is not that long ago. Surely Chris Brown should have to pay penance longer than that,” she wrote.

The upcoming concert gained worldwide attention last week on the heels of a guerrilla marketing campaign in which alternative posters were put up across Stockholm depicting Rihanna's battered face from 2009.

The companies booking Brown have been urged to retract the invitation due to the performer’s violent past but representatives say that booking the singer doesn’t mean they condone violence against women.

“One has to separate the artist Chris Brown from the person. Chris Brown is here as a performer. His songs are played on all Swedish radio stations. He received a prize at the MTV awards recently and all his gigs across the world are sold out," a PR agent for one of the organizers, Stockholmsgruppen, told media paper Resumé last week.

So far, however, no other papers have said they will boycott the concert.

The Dagens Nyheter (DN) music reviewer and moral philosopher Thomas Anderberg will be reviewing the show. He thinks it would be a different story if Brown's lyrics also glorified abusing women.

"The way I see it, it's not morally wrong to review or attend the concert. He has been punished and no one is hushing up the incident. On top of that it is a good opportunity to get violence against women onto the agenda," he said to DN.

The Local/rm
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