Hell's Friction

Born in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, Indonesia (the area now known for the tsunami tragedy) to a Swiss father and Indonesian Mother, Swerte has gone though a rollercoaster of a life which comes out through his consistently changing styles of rap/hip-hop.

His first performance during the mid 90's was at a national rap competition where his group, The SouthSiderz, surprised everyone by taking a perfect triple score of ten to win first place. After their (literally) ground-breaking performance (they performed "Jump Around" from House of Pain), the group continued to perform at local clubs and cafes and built a name for themselves. For a few months they even performed as an opening act and backing rappers for national RnB celebrity, Dewi Sandra.

The following year, a newly reformed SouthSiderz joined the national rap comp again, and took first place trophy again to the chants of the participants and the crowd who were watching screaming their name.

What followed after was a dip in their career where the group didn't perform for months and Swerte fell into drug dealing. Their last performance was in Parkit club, year 2000, when a few months later, Swerte was caught with possesion of illicit substances. He did four months at the notorious Rutan Pondok Bambu and was deported from the country.

It has been six years since Swerte has been deported but he is still blacklisted from his home country. His nationality is Swiss but he was born and grew up in Indonesia. Since leaving the country, he has managed to go back secretly for a few times and even did a surprise performance in Bali with his original Southsiderz crew and won a yet another rap contest.

He continues to make his music, using it as an expression for the way he feels about the "system" and chooses not to follow in the masses of commercial music. His purpose is to hopefully make an album one day so that he can at least hopefully return to his home country as a performing artist.