Music | Edu Kehäkettunen is boring the current rap scene: “Kokoomusräppia”

Harri Hinkkanen, 47, is a family man from Espoo who lives in the peak years, who enjoys being at home, playing golf, and exasperating social inequality. He is also Edu Kehäkettunen, who raps in rouses.

“To me I'm not a rapper”, Harri Hinkkanen says, and presses the pork chop towards the sound.

The Ribis grill in Espoo's Tapiola is buzzing at lunchtime. The place is one of Hinkkanen's favorites, and that's why it's fitting that Hinkkanen has profiled himself specifically as a rapper from Espoo.

“It's been almost thirty years since the first song”, he confirms.

And yet you don't consider yourself a rapper?

“I fucking don't.”

Hinkkanen describes herself as a “housewife from Espoo” at the moment, for whom rapping is more of a hobby. Something to be done along with everything else. Everything else is the usual hustle and bustle of a middle-aged man: family life, sports, record collecting and so on. Hinkkasen also has a weekly radio show on Radio Helsinki.

Now in any case, the hobby is in a more active phase again. Hinkkanen's alter ego Edu Kehäkettunen released a new album in January.

Fifteen years have already passed since the last solo album. Of course, rap has been made in other ensembles in between.

But why now?

“Why not?”

Hinkkanen admits that he has already “left the grounds”, at least partially. But then there was a burning feeling that new music should be released.

“If I made a record every year, would that be good? Probably not. You have to have the feeling that now we're going to put everything into play.”

That was the feeling when making this record, Hinkkanen assures. Familiar guys helped with finishing the beats, mastering and with the cover art.

The album is instantly recognizable as Edu Kehäkettusen's album. The album is also named preferentially: Gives faija jörn. The name was inspired by real-life events.

“Frendi said that its father had married a woman twenty years younger. I told him to give a damn.”

“

“The music scene as a whole is really tired.”

Raunchy humor is Edu's trademark. It was already at the beginning of the 2000s, when he came to the attention of a wider audience in the ranks of MC Taakibörsta from Olari. As then, the rhymes now also move along the holy trinity of pimping, pumping and strumming.

If sometimes life was more like his own rhymes, Hinkkanen's current reality is quite far from the world that the lush raps tell about.

“Frendit asks why you are not seen at the bar. I'm not going anywhere. Darra and the children don't get along,” he says.

“It has gone into this middle age. Nowadays, you don't see the gang unless you go out for lunch, to play a round of golf or to play golf.”

With his new album, Edu Kehäkettunen has come across boomer biases. Picture: Kimmo Räisänen

Middle aging can be heard somehow in music, he thinks. The new album has at least songs like Taxi reform and Places to shitwhich comment on the surrounding society.

The latter was born a few years ago. Hinkkanen was on parental leave with her first child. There was time to move around in public and look around.

“We saw a lot of interlopers, kids in their twenties and thirties, depressed. I wondered then, does the gang want more of this? And now we have only gone in a worse direction.”

The new album is still not intended to launch serious Edu. The sense of humor is and will remain. Rap has always also been about flapping, says Hinkkanen.

“On Davothe legend of Finnish rap and the best rapper, has an aphorism: if you can't throw a flap, don't rap.”

That doesn't mean everything should be a joke. It's more about perspective, an insightful and humorous way of saying things. In Hinkkanen's opinion, especially today, there are too many rappers who simply don't know how to throw a clap. That's when playful and boring music is created.

“The music scene as a whole is really tired. When you listen to new songs on the radio from time to time, few people turn it on. The closest thing that comes to mind is kokomus rap, you don't make music, you make streams.”

Hinkkanen no need to filter when he talks about the current rapsken. A year ago, there was even a small uproar, when he spoiled the Emma gala on social media and became a teaser, among other things Ghetto mass. As a result of the opening, the bandmates got nervous, who for whatever reason. They parted ways, and Hinkkanen began to realize himself as a solo artist again.

The noise still amazes.

“Some people got angry, but others said that this is the same flap that Edu has been throwing for many years. I'm not such a big Stara that anyone's world should go haywire. That was just my opinion.”

Now that we got up to speed, according to Hinkkanen, another thing that troubles current rap circles is the lack of history: rappers are not interested in what previous generations did. For him, role models and pioneers, such as, for example, a rapper from Olari Raimowere once a spark for rapping.

Someone might dismiss Hinkkanen's speeches as an uncle's taunting. He knows it, but he doesn't care.

Does the “housewife from Espoo” intend to continue rapping until her senior years? Hinkkanen can't say that.

“I'm 47 now, but I don't consider myself too old. But I don't even know if the gang can stand to listen to any more sleazy rappers.”

It is certain that at least the next album is already in mind. And the movie too. Enjoyed a cult reputation Edumania-movie (2018) is getting a sequel.

The name of the movie is already ready: Edu is doing his doctorate in Finnish rap.