Trainspotters

Trainspotters emerged from Umeå, Sweden, as a Laplandic hip-hop duo that coined their own “Dirty North” approach to rap. Erik Hörstedt, performing as Erk, and Hannes Sigrell, known on stage as George Kaplan, first joined forces in 2004. Throughout the rest of that decade the pair issued a steady stream of mixtapes while also producing snowboarding and skateboarding videos, gradually building a compact business under the Random Bastards imprint that functioned simultaneously as a record label and an artistic collective. Once they began dropping individual singles and taking their live show to stages across Europe and Japan, the duo unveiled their first full-length effort, Dirty North, in 2010. Fellow Random Bastards affiliate Academics lent a hand as co-producer on the album, which served as the opening chapter in a three-part series completed by Bastards! in 2013 and Skate or Die in 2016.