The Latin Kings

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For the criminal street gang, see Latin Kings

The Latin Kings aka TLK is a Swedish hip hop group from the municipality of Botkyrka in the southern suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden.

The members of the group are the lead rapper Dogge Doggelito (Douglas Léon) and the two brothers, Salla and Chepe. They all have roots in Latin America (Venezuela and Chile), which is why they took their name from the gang Latin Kings.

They grew up in the concrete suburbs in Botkyrka where a large proportion of the population are immigrants and refugees and the poverty is more visible than elsewhere in Sweden. The hip hop subculture has a large following in these areas of Stockholm. Their songs reflect life in the less affluent suburbs.

TLK were, in 1994, among the first to release a hip hop album with lyrics in Swedish (the first was Just D). Swedish rappers had before that time almost always used English. The debut album was Välkommen till förorten (Welcome to the suburb) and the very first single was "Snubben" (The dude). The group felt like they had been ripped off by their record company and they decided to start their own label, Red Line Records, on which they have signed a number of talented hip hop artists in Sweden such as Fattaru, Kalle Kath, Fjärde världen and Ison & Fille.

If their contemporaries Infinite Mass is influenced by the West Coast sound, TLK has more of an East Coast flavor. The Latin Kings has become famous for rapping in the local Rinkeby Swedish, a "multiethnolect language" that is used in areas with many immigrants. It's basically Swedish with loanwords from Turkish, Aramaic, Spanish, Persian, Arabic and a few other languages.