Days before Los Angeles fled to the California desert for Coachella, the city had a festival of its own with H&M — only this one was open to the public and stationed downtown, but still packed with performers and DJs that kept the party going well into the morning.
Headliners included PAPER cover star Doechii, PinkPantheress and Jamie XX, who brought out Swedish pop icon Robyn to sing their track “Life,” before she unleashed her classics “Dancing On My Own” and “Hang With Me” onto the screaming crowd (fans were clacking, drinks were flying).
VIPs like Alex Consani, Gabbriette, Tyla, Tinashe and Lisa Rinna all stopped by, floating in-between stages to celebrate H&M’s Spring 2025 collection and kick off the new season.
Prior to her performance, PAPER sat down backstage with Robyn, who wore H&M’s exaggerated-hip mini dress over a black oversized t-shirt. We talked about her relationship to LA, collaborating with Charli xcx and Yung Lean, and what it’s like being back in the studio now as a mother.
It’s a whole festival in here, basically, but just Downtown LA. Do you come to this city often?
No, I don’t. I haven’t been here since 2020, but I’ve lived here, so I’ve spent lots of time here. I just haven’t been back since the pandemic, actually — I’ve been in Sweden.
When did you live here?
Well, never permanently, but I spent a lot of time here over the years. I had periods when I was touring, when I didn’t go back to Sweden, I stayed here instead with friends.
I feel like the pop capitals are Sweden and LA.
Yeah, it’s true, but I never really made a lot of music in LA. I always made music in Sweden and then I just stayed here because of friends. It’s maybe the city I’ve spent the most time in except for Stockholm.
Oh wow, that’s kind of crazy.
Yeah, it is kind of crazy.
Well, I think what’s amazing about you is you’re kind of an enigma. You’ll pop up and do an event like H&M’s, then disappear for a while. That’s kind of rare, especially in music today. When you’re not doing moments like tonight, what keeps you inspired?
I’m in the studio a lot at the moment working on music. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last two years, but I’ve also had a baby, so my life has been very domestic and Stockholm-based. But inspiration, for me at least, comes from my life, just living, so it’s been really good to be at home and have time to work on music. Also, inspiration is this thing you have to work for. Sometimes it happens by itself, but most of the time inspiration comes, if you spend a lot of time doing the same thing over and over, it starts taking on its own life. So I think being in the studio, actually, is inspiring, although not always. Sometimes it’s just—
Difficult?
Yeah, you just have to power through. A lot of times you get the reaction of like, What do you do? I make music. Oh, that must be so fun. And I’m like, No. [Laughs] It is fun and liberating and my favorite thing to do, but it’s also sometimes a struggle. Yeah, it can be really uncomfortable, as well. So having a routine and, you know, I’m a nine-to-five person. I have that kind of work ethic.
I would imagine having a baby has also impacted the way that you are thinking about and making music.
Yeah, now it’s vacation. [Laughs] It used to be work, now it’s like time off.
Right, like, Please get me to the studio.
It actually made me more excited about making music again because it’s my own space. It’s funny how many things become really exotic and interesting again when you have a baby, like just going to the store and having five minutes to yourself when you’re going grocery shopping is kind of amazing.
But also seeing the world through your kid’s perspective.
Yeah, all of those things, for sure.
So many people were excited to see you working with Charli xcx, because there are a lot of parallels between you two as disruptors in the pop space. How did you get connected, and what was it like working with her on the “360” remix with Yung Lean?
Well, we’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve known each other since we were on the same tour [15 years ago] doing festivals in Australia. We had this moment where we connected at an after party, hanging out. I was really young, like 30 and she was 20. Whatever little experience I’d had I was able to share with her, and she was very inspiring to me. We just stayed acquaintances. She spent a lot of time in Sweden, but we never really hung out that much. Whenever we did see each other, it was very special. I just always really loved her mind and I think it was very obvious, even when she was 20, that she was a smart girl. I was challenged by our conversations, and I always was a fan.
Then she started taking on this new energy. You could see her ramp it up over a few years. I think it’s interesting, it usually takes quite some time to get to that point, and I really recognized it like, She’s gonna do something soon, I can feel it. So when she called me, she was in Sweden and she wanted me to work on something, I was like, Yes, whatever, it just feels so exciting. I didn’t know that she was making a new album, but she asked me to do this remix for the remix project with Jonatan [Yung Lean], who’s someone that I love, as well. I think it really shows her genius that she put us together on the same track. Me and Jonatan actually have a lot in common, too.
Really?
It’s a very particular experience that we share being from Sweden and having a career from [age] 16, so it was cool.
It was such an exciting trio and you’re right, it just made sense.
I think we always knew that we liked each other and that there was a connection. It was just very obvious. It never felt constructed or weird, just very natural. We were in the studio, [Charli] came to my house and we had dinner. She told me everything about Brat, it was right before it all exploded. I think it’s gonna be called Brat, and she played me a lot of songs. She’s such a cool chick, she’s always been like that.
Doechii is here tonight. Are there any other young artists that you’re excited about?
Yeah, Doechii is amazing — super inspiring, of course. I think Jonatan [Yung Lean] is such a beautiful person and such a genuine artist and has such an advanced analysis in the world. I’m excited to see what he’s going to do. There’s a really cool scene in Denmark now with young female electronic artists that are making really amazing music, like Astrid Sonne and ML Buch. I’m blown away, they’re all collaborating and really cool.
Your Jamie XX collaboration, “Life,” which you’re performing tonight for H&M, is such a powerful but simple song. What was it like working with him and how did you arrive at the hook, “You’re giving me life,” over and over?
I was just like, Why has no one ever sung this before in a chorus? That’s crazy. It was just one of those songs that came out of my mouth as we were writing it. Jamie already had the track and he wanted to write on it, and I didn’t want to write on the horns. He was like, Can you do something with horns? We’d been working on it for a long time and I was like, No, I’m not gonna do anything on the horns, because they just made me cry. It’s one of those things where it’s so powerful and happy, the sample, but I think it has this secret sadness to it. Then I decided to work on it together with Klas [Åhlund], my writing partner, and we wrote the more ’90s, house-sounding stuff. The rapping was just me freestyling, basically.
Sometimes the best ideas are the most obvious ones, where it’s like, Why hasn’t this been done? Well, here it is.
Yeah, it’s the same thing with “Dancing On My Own.” I mean, “Dancing with tears in my eyes,” definitely that’s been made. No one had said “Dancing on my own” before. Those things, they’re just out there and if you have a good day you can catch them somehow.
That’s probably why “Dancing On My Own” has resonated for as long as it has. The simplest ideas can affect so many people and you apply your own individual experience to them. That’s really great pop music.
Yeah, I think so, too. When there’s enough space for your own experience, you don’t have to take care of the artist’s sadness. I think that’s important, even if it is a sad song. I don’t know if I’ve been able to do that before, but nowadays I’m more interested in leaving space for that.
I’m in the studio a lot at the moment working on music. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last two years.
Photos courtesy of H&M