Notkea Rotta is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 rap

Rapping

Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...

 group consisting of members Notkea Rotta (literally "Supple Rat"), Rautaperse ("Iron Arse"), Komisario Jyrkkä ("Inspector Steep") and Meno-Anu ("Speedy-Anu"). The group mixes humour and comedy in their brand of hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

, crafting original (and largely fictional) rap saga of the underground culture in the east side of Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

. Notkea Rotta heavily parodies - or pays tribute to - American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 gangsta rap

Gangsta rap

Gangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word...

.

Notkea Rotta released their debut album Panokset piippuun, pöhinät pönttöön in 2002. Their lyrical subject matter mostly deals with common Finnish street drugs (especially amphetamine), sex and the occasional clashes with the police. The group raps exclusively in Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

, using a lot of Helsinki slang vocabulary, making it rather difficult for non-speakers to understand the lyrics.

While the group had a band on stage at live acts for a longer time, on the last album the band was also in the studio for the recording of the 2007 album "Kontula - Koh Phangan All Night Long". The band is called "Liekehtivät Torsionit" (Flaming Torsions) and consists of musicians better known from bands like Barathrum

Barathrum

Barathrum is a Finnish black doom band. They originate from Kuopio but have since re-located to Helsinki. The first letters of their full-length albums spell "HEIL SOVA" , which completes their original eight-album plan. However, there have been rumours about a new record ever since the Anno Aspera...

, Ensiferum

Ensiferum

Ensiferum is a Finnish folk metal band from Helsinki. The members of the band label themselves as "heroic folk metal." Since their formation, Ensiferum has released four full-length albums, one EP, one compilation, three singles, and three demo albums and one unreleased album.-Musical...

, L.A.M.F.

L.A.M.F.

L.A.M.F. is the only studio album by the American band, Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, which included Jerry Nolan, Walter Lure and Billy Rath. The music is a mixture of punk, R&B and rock and roll. The band played a seminal role in the formation of early punk. Thunders and Nolan were...

 and Defuse.

Albums

• Panokset piippuun, pöhinät pönttöön (2002)
• Itä Meidän (2005)
• Kontula - Koh Phangan All Night Long (2007)
• Notkea maa (2010)