The rapper’s career has lasted ten years and during that time he has become one of Finland’s most successful artists.
Gettomasa, or Aleksi Lehikoinen, has been a rapper for ten years. He has recently become known for his style inspired by Yankee rap, where he raps about cool cars, women and parties.
However, at the age of 28, the rapper who has streamed millions of times wants to tell about more than just surface gliding in his music. With his fifth album, which will be released on Friday, the artist feels that he is returning closer to where he started rapping, i.e. social issues.
Stories that don’t get heard
The ghetto mass is slowly starting to break out of its shell. First, a big leather jacket comes off and then a hood. He rarely opens up about his thoughts in interviews.
The name of the rapper’s new album is *Irresistible* and one of its themes is addictions, be it material or non-material addictions.
He tells stories about himself and the people around him with his songs.
In the title track, Gettomasa raps about, among other things, how he has seen all kinds of drug addiction since he was a teenager, from smoking to drug addiction.
– There are more multidimensional reasons for some human fates than just what you can see with a quick glance.
With the six-minute song *Se ois ollu siin*, the artist talks about the sad fates he saw up close.
They included drugs, assault charges, foreclosures, prison terms, and finally passing away.
Gettomasa feels that he had an obligation to tell similar stories, because they are not heard enough in the media, for example.
– These are things that are not talked about. They are the stories that don’t get heard. I have knowledge and understanding of the matter and I can write about it. I felt that it was my job to make a song like this.
The beginning started with barking
Gettomasa from Jyväskylä has been rapping about his experiences since he was young.
On Friday, it will be exactly ten years since he won the Finnish Rap Championship.
The rapper had already decided a year earlier that he would win the competition. He was so determined that he spent the last months practicing rapping up to nine hours a day.
The threat was strong. A week before the games, he released a song in which he announced that he had already won the competition.
– I didn’t leave myself any chances. I put a knife to my own throat that you have to win or you’ve embarrassed yourself, the rapper recalls.
Gettomasa won the race, but everyone thought the victory was undeserved. He was bashed mercilessly on internet sites.
– That’s when I received the first bit of anger that you have to receive in a public gathering. I read on the internet how bad I am. It was a moment of shock for the 18-year-old young man who had been doing his own thing to the fullest.
Messenger of the international rap sound
Gettomasa’s career has been a slow but steady climb towards the top. He slowly gathered a fan base with his first two albums *Vellamo LP* (2014) and *Chosen One* (2016).
Greater success came with the *Diplomaatti* album released in 2019.
Gettomasa now talks about it with special pride. According to him, the album was groundbreaking, because at the time, other commercially successful Finnish rap did not sound like world-class urban rhythm music.
– The Finnish rap of that time was a version of rap passed through the iskelmä filter. I had a principle and task, that I wanted to bring the international rap sound into commercially successful music in Finland.
According to the rapper, after the popularity of his album, big record companies and other operators woke up and dared to start rapping more freely and internationally.
In 2019, Finland won the ice hockey world championship and Gettomasa was invited to perform at the gold party. It finally brought the rapper to the attention of the general public.
– The ice hockey world championship brought me more promo and when I got up there on stage, my album was the biggest in Finland at that moment.
Other than the outer shell
Rap music is currently the most popular music genre in Finland and the world. For example, the performers of the most listened songs in Finland on Spotify are mostly domestic rappers.
In Gettomasa’s opinion, rap has become so mainstream that it is already pop music.
It saddens him that rap has been washed away from the idealism it had in the subculture times.
Rap no longer connects people in the same way as before.
– Nowadays, it seems that the rap culture in Finland no longer bows to anything other than numerical success.
According to the rapper, especially for younger artists, rap music is only the surface and success.
– Just shiny clothes. In the songs, everyone is now taking some imaginary girl to an imaginary country and buying them imaginary branded clothes. None of them are real stories. It’s just an invented outer shell, from which you can make some great 15-second tiktok.
Gettomasa admits that he too has cultivated this imagery in his music. The base of his music is in Yankee rap, where he talks about expensive things, parties and women.
Even in his latest songs, he raps about the champagne diet or the 500 horsepower below, for example.
Now he says that he is tired of just being a shell.
– After I’ve been making that kind of music for a few years, I started to feel that I wanted something deeper. I want to talk about real life and a little rough and ugly things when things don’t go so well. I hope this balances the current image of rap a bit.
