Student Olli Leppänen wrote an absolutely magnificient opinion piece for Klangi about the state of Finnish rap. I highly highly recommend reading it in full if you can.
It goes over the brief history of Finnish rap as a genre, and what worries him over its current state.
He highlights that upon breaking through to the mainstream, the genre found many artists doing new and interesting things, mentioning ibe's use of humour, Jami Faltin paying homage to iskelmä, Ege Zulu and Turisti both bringing confidence, charisma and genuine topics, and many others as well, however highlighting that in the current state, those new and interesting things are starting to give way to a more record label manufactured broadly appealing sound.
Particularly Leppänen focuses on the importance of young artists staying inspired and finding their own vision as an aspect of developing and maintaining culture, and encouraging the rappers that are finding their footing in the field and breaking through to do that.
"In any case, in our country whose government is cutting funding from culture and so our identity by extent, I want to not only remind those artists currently sitting at the top of the chart of their influence, but also also to give faith and awaken inspiration to the new up and coming artists. Your voice is important, and your courage to make it heard is even more respectable. Though in this text I express my worries, the current state of Finnish rap is also full of good."
