Songs to Remember on Rainy Days - Leijonamieli & Putkimiehet
On Saturday afternoon people near Rentolava (The Chill Out Stage) got to enjoy a combination that works just as surely as beer and cigarettes or coffee and cognac: sun, beach and a Finnish hip hop group. Last year the entertainer was Ruudolf, this year Leijonamieli & Putkimiehet.
The audience consisted primarily of teenagers, and pretty summer dresses and birch twigs in hair matched the atmosphere perfectly. What was also fantastic was the fact that there was really an actual band on the stage: especially the trumpet sounded good in the ensemble. There were two vocalists as well: Leijonamieli himself and SP, formerly known as Silkinpehmee.
The audibility of the lyrics was not the best possible outdoors, but good enough for the listener to distinguish teasing with an attitude as well as sensitive and open emotionality. In fact, the group’s mellow, dedicated and breezy show raised thoughts that are almost too whimsical to be thought in the vicinity of Rentolava. Is hip hop raising a completely new male generation that is the absolute opposite of the traditional conception of masculinity? Like the Finnish man did not speak, smile, dance, was not open or stick his neck out? Leijonamieli rapped with emotion the sensitive feelings of a man in love, praised his mother, made several spiritual remarks and danced with gusto.
The songs heard during the gig were mainly from the album “Lauluja sadepäivän varalle” (”Songs to Remember on Rainy Days”) which was released in the spring. Some that stood out included “Sana” (”Word”), in which the worse rappers are panned according to the best conventions of the genre, “Tartu käteen” (”Take My Hand”), which offered deep social analysis, and of course the radio hit that was heard as an encore, “Laulu sadepäivän varalle”. Although many people perceive the latter as a happy-go-lucky summer hit, a more careful listening of the lyrics reveals it to be a sensitive and poetic exaltation of intimacy and closeness. Can there be anything more fragile than a young man in love and up front? Hardly.
Text: Salla Brunou
Translation: Hanna Laaksonen