Finnish rapper Karri ‘Paleface’ Miettinen is a member of the Centenary Board preparing the programme for Finland’s centenary celebration year.
Paleface writes about what Finnishness means to him. “To me, the invisible bond between countrymen who don’t know one another, whether in the heat of the tropics or the hectic pace of a metropolitan area, is one of the most concrete expressions of Finnishness. We share something. We’re all members of the same tribe, part of the same collective consciousness.”
“I contemplated the Finnish identity in late summer while sitting in a dark cargo container with three other Finns as part of a human smuggling simulation organised by Yle, the Finnish Broadcasting Company. Journalist and artist Rakel Liekki from Savo, Eastern Finland, Swedish-speaking journalist Dan Granqvist from Kemiö, Southwestern Finland, Susani Mahadura, a Helsinki-based student whose roots are in Sri Lanka, and me, a rapper who grew up in Häme, studied in Tampere and lives in Helsinki – four people with very different backgrounds sitting there, in the dark. Together.”
