Musikhjälpen is the Swedish version of the Dutch Serious Request radio and television campaign. The annual show is an appeal for money which each year helps a certain cause. Three radio/television personalities are locked inside a glass house for 144 hours, and they broadcast live on Swedish public service radio network Sveriges Radio and on public services television through SVT. People send text messages requesting a song, with each text costing 50, 100, 200, or 500 Swedish kronor. In later years, a Musikhjälpen-app has been used for requesting songs as well.
Ayesha Quraishi is a Botswana-born Swedish performance artist. She also owns the recording company Aqueen Entertainment. She was born in Botswana to a non-resident Indian father and Motswana mother, and was raised in Hässelby, Stockholm.
Mariette Hansson, sometimes credited as MaryJet or simply Mariette, is a Swedish singer and songwriter. Hansson participated in Sikta mot stjärnorna in 1999 imitating singer Amanda Marshall. She participated in Idol 2009 which was broadcast on TV4 and finished fourth. A year later, Hansson was announced as "homo of the year" at the QX Gaygala in Stockholm.
Jonas Hassen Khemiri is a Swedish writer. He is the author of six novels, seven plays, and a collection of essays, short stories and plays. His work has been translated into more than 25 languages. He has received the August Prize for fiction and a Village Voice Obie Award for best script. In 2017 he became the first Swedish writer to have a short story published in the New Yorker. Khemiri's novel The Family Clause (FSG) was awarded the French Prix Médicis and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Khemiri moved to New York in 2021 for a Cullman Fellowship at The New York Public Library and currently teaches in the Creative Writing program at NYU. In 2023 he was a Ben Belitt Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bennington College.
Hen is a gender-neutral personal pronoun in Swedish intended as an alternative to the gender-specific hon ("she") and han ("he"). It can be used when the gender of a person is not known or when it is not desirable to specify them as either a "she" or "he". The word was first proposed in 1966, and again in 1994, with reference to the Finnish hän, a personal pronoun that is gender-neutral, since Finnish does not have grammatical genders. However, it did not receive widespread recognition until around 2010, when it began to be used in some books, magazines and newspapers, and provoked media debates and controversy over feminism, gender neutrality, and parenting. In July 2014, it was announced that hen would be included in Svenska Akademiens ordlista, the official spelling dictionary of the Swedish Academy. In April 2015, the gender neutral pronoun hen and 13,000 other new words were added in a new official dictionary of the Swedish language. Today, some believe the word has lost some of its feminist-activist connotation in Sweden as it is used in the media, court rulings and books.
Ellen Linnea Petrea Henriksson is a Swedish singer and songwriter who participated in Idol 2010 in which she placed fourth. As of April 2018, she is also the lead singer of the jazz band Prylf. In 2012, Henriksson released her first music album, which she co-wrote and co-produced with singer Orup. During mid-2013, Henriksson toured Sweden with the band Gyllene Tider.
Kristian Olof Erik Gidlund was a Swedish musician and author. He played drums in the rock band Sugarplum Fairy. He hosted Sommar i P1 on Swedish radio and released one book. In 2011 Gidlund was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and died from the disease in 2013 four days short of his 30th birthday.
Eva Elisa Lindström is a Swedish pop and country music singer, and the lead singer for the dansband, Elisa's.
Nour El Refai is a Swedish actress and comedian. She became known for her participation in the candid-camera show Raj Raj in 2007 and hosted Melodifestivalen 2014. El Refai has also appeared in several movies such as Kronjuvelerna and Johan Falk: Spelets regler.
Anna Maria Kitty Skura Jutbring is a Swedish reality television contestant, radio and television host, singer and DJ. She became known in Sweden after being a housemate on Big Brother in 2002, and has since become a radio and television host by hosting shows on Sveriges Radio P3 and SVT. Jutbring has hosted shows like Musikhjälpen on television and Christer on radio.
Ann Helen Heberlein is a Swedish academic and author, who writes extensively on theology and ethics. She is best known for her autobiographical account of life with bipolar disorder, Jag vill inte dö, jag vill bara inte leva.
Elsa Billgren is a Swedish television presenter and fashion blogger. She has presented many television shows on ZTV, SVT and TV4, and has hosted radio shows for Sveriges Radio. Billgren has also written and published a non-fiction book and a novel.
Shima Niavarani is an Iranian-Swedish actress and singer. She has performed in theater, film, television and radio in over 40 productions. Niavarani got her breakthrough at the age of nineteen in the play Autodidakt i enmansakt which she directed and played in. She toured with the play for over a year and her work received several awards. She is perhaps most known for her solo-musical Shima Niavarani är en Übermensch which was broadcast on SVT in 2010, and for her role as "Maiken" in the TV4 series Allt faller which was directed by Henrik Schyffert.
Lisa Kristina Ajax is a Swedish singer. Ajax began her career after winning Idol 2014, and is also known for her four Melodifestivalen participations, having qualified to the final on three occasions.
Isa Sanna Mattiasdotter Tengblad, known professionally as simply Isa is a Swedish singer, songwriter, and producer. She is best known for her participations in Melodifestivalen 2015 and Melodifestivalen 2016. The nightcore remix of her 2012 single "Bomb" has amassed over 20 million views on YouTube across several re-uploads. She independently released her most recent EP in fall 2022, titled "Anxiety Boulevard," which she also produced and wrote.
William Spetz is a Swedish actor. He created and starred in the 2023 Netflix series Tore.
Clara Susanna Henry is a Swedish actress, blogger, comedian, television presenter and author. She has approximately 372,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and hosts her own talk show on Swedish TV station Kanal 5. She has also been a backstage reporter at two editions of the national-level music competition Melodifestivalen, produced by the broadcasting company SVT.
Rhys Clarstedt, better known as simply Rhys, is a Swedish-American singer and songwriter. Her singles "Swallow Your Pride" and "Last Dance" became hits in Sweden. In 2018 she released her debut album Stages.
Johanna Maria Jansson, better known by her stage name Dotter, is a Swedish singer and songwriter. She finished second in Melodifestivalen 2020 with her song "Bulletproof", one point behind The Mamas. In Melodifestivalen 2021, where she competed with the song "Little Tot", she placed fourth with 105 points.
Stina Elisabet Oscarson is a Swedish theater director, author, and debater.
