Assyrian-Swedish rapper Ant Wan begins retirement
The extremely successful and mysterious Swedish-Assyrian artist Ant Wan says he's leaving music.
Assyrian rapper Ant Wan has entered retirement from August 1st after his performance at the Dream Park Festival. The festival, based in Malmo, was his last tour performance before officially stepping away from music; at 27 years old, he was considered one of Sweden’s rising hip hop stars.
Ant Wan, or Antwan Afrem, was born in 1998 to an Assyrian family from Syria. He originally went by the name Råby, after the area in the Swedish town of Västerås he grew up in, but would change his name in 2018.
Ant Wan made headlines in 2024 for performing a concert at the Tele2 arena in Stockholm, beating a record of attendance previously held by Madonna. In May 2025, he announced on his Instagram that he would be retiring from music saying that he's tired of performing and not wanting to do something he doesn't enjoy anymore.
The artist remains popular with around half a million monthly listeners on Spotify and several of his songs having more than 40 million plays. Ant Wan is described as a phenomenon by Swedish music critics as he came seemingly from nowhere to beat new concert records.
Sweden’s Assyrian community has recently seen a number of successful rappers that have dominated the country’s music charts. Among other rappers are Ricky Rich (Ricky Haydari Akdoğan), A36 (Geivar Hasado Shlaimon), and the now-deceased Gaboro (Ninos Moses Khouri).
