Ricardo DaSilva II was born in New York. He has also lived in Trinidad & Tobago and Panama before relocating to Stockholm, Sweden in 1991. In Stockholm, he became involved in the emerging hip hop scene and joined the Timebomb collective, together with producer Christian Falk, rapper ADL, DJ Sleepy among others. Three singles were released and one of them was Swingfly's "Smoke 'em Swing", a jazzy number produced by Christian Falk. A series of albums was planned when the record label bailed out. Under the name Swing, he teamed up with Dr. Alban in 1995 and recorded Euro-disco hit "Sweet Dreams" featuring Dr. Alban (a cover of the classic Eurythmics' song) which peaked at No.12 in Sweden. This took him into the pop charts in number of European countries including the Netherlands where the singles peaked at No.44. In 1996 Swingfly appeared on several tracks of ADL’s "Absent Minded" project. Due to a small hit via a Hugo Boss commercial, "Absent Minded" hit the road supporting Fugees European tour in 1996. Swingfly was featured on several tracks on all three albums with soul-jazz collective Blacknuss All-Stars (later known as Blacknuss), as well as being a frequent contributor to their live shows around Europe and the UK. He achieved his biggest success, through a collaboration with the electro/dub/punk trio Teddybears on their 2004 single "Hey Boy". This song became one of the most played tracks on Swedish radio that summer. The song "Hey Boy" has been listed for 21 weeks on the Sweden Singles Top 60 and peaked at #13. Swingfly has since then toured Sweden, Europe and the United States with Teddybears and their spin-off project Teddybears STHLM Soundsystem.
