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Lenny Kravitz on his youth in Motala: A lot of potatoes

Lenny Kravitz is not WRONG though, is he?

Lenny Kravitz on his youth in Motala: A lot of potatoes
Lenny Kravitz poses at a ceremony honoring him with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a far cry from Motala in central Sweden. Photo: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

US star Lenny Kravitz is not only known in Sweden for his long track record of creating rock, funk, R&B and so on mega hits, as well as accidentally ripping his trousers in a very unfortunate place during a legendary concert at Stockholm’s Gröna Lund in 2015.

Soon, he might also be known for his opinions on the city of Motala, which have gone viral in Sweden.

He told Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet in an interview that he dated a girl from Motala in his youth, and spent a lot of time in the city.

“It was many years ago. I met her while recording Mama Said and we dated for a few years. It was very good,” he said.

Asked what he remembers of Motala, he said: “A lot of potatoes, growing in the fields. And everyone had flowers outside their windows.”

A lot of Swedes found it amusing that Motala had not left a bigger impression on the star than “a lot of potatoes”, when frankly it’s even more amusing that it had left an impression at all. Nothing against the lovely Motala, but it’s not exactly known as the city of rock’n’roll.

Was Kravitz wrong about Motala? Not necessarily.

The city of some 30,000 people is situated in Östergötland, a fertile part of Sweden with a big agricultural industry, including potato. In fact, travel just 20 minutes south and its neighbouring town of Mjölby has a giant potato statue on display at one of its roundabouts.

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PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Photo of the week: Can you guess which Swedish city this is?

Every week, The Local invites readers to submit their pictures to our photo competition, to bring our audience together from all parts of Sweden.

Photo of the week: Can you guess which Swedish city this is?

This week’s winner is Anuj Grover, who sent the above picture of the city of Norrköping.

If you’ve spent much time around the south of Sweden, you’ll have seen the word köping pop up on a lot of city names, including the town of Köping, as well as Linköping, Nyköping, Norrköping and more.

Swedish learners might recognise the root of the verb köpa (to buy), and that’s where these towns get their names: köping was used to refer to market or trading towns.

In the mid-19th century, the Swedish government gave a few dozen of the country’s 2,500 municipalities the right to be a city (stad). A further eight places were defined as köpingar, which was a midway status between städer and municipalköpingar. The number of köpingar rose to reach 95 over the following century.

Many of the towns that incorporated köping into their name later became official städer, but their names often didn’t change. In the early 1970s, many of the distinctions between different municipalities were removed, so you won’t hear the word köping used much, but it lives on in multiple towns.

Norrköping, however, has had its name far longer than that. It received its city credentials in 1384.

It used to have a booming textile industry for centuries, and after the Second World War it was home to 54 factories employing more than 6,000 people.

Would you like to be featured in The Local’s photo of the week series?

You can submit your entries via email at news@thelocal.se with the subject “Photo of the week”, or by submitting your photo to X using the hashtag #TheLocalSwedenPOTW – or look out for our Facebook post every week on The Local Sweden where you can submit your photo.

Please tell us your name so we can credit you as the photographer, and tell us a little bit about the photo and where it was taken.

By submitting a photo, you’re giving us permission to republish it on The Local’s website, our social media and newsletters.

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