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Artist
Alaska Kalanen
12+ albums
about
Alaska Kalanen, as he is known in his adopted home country of Finland, is the New Jersey-born voice and producer behind Helsinki's innovative hip hop & delta blues duo The Soul Hustlers. Best described as an acoustic DJ, Kalanen exhibits a highly original resonator steel slide guitar and singing style that evokes references to everything from 1920's Delta blues recordings to early 90's hip hop, seamlessly blended with beatboxing, mouth trumpeting, guitar drumming, floorboard stomping, and miscellaneous grunting noises into his own unique soundscapes. Alaska's unlikely and soulful acoustic derivations from all genres transcend eras and trends. Originally a street performer, Kalanen ended 2006 as the warmup act for the mighty Don Johnson Big Band at Helsinki's legendary Tavastia in front of hundreds of excited young hip hop fans - just before he departed for a tour of Tokyo. His music is emotionally engaged and refreshingly relevant to all intelligent modern audiences, and his raw and unfiltered performances exhibit a degree of depth and vitality uncommon among solo acoustic performers. Alaska has to date been spotted onstage with the immense and diverse talents of Don Johnson Big Band, Maz, Staffro, Pekka Kuusisto, Emma Salokoski, Bullfrog Brown, Jo' Buddy, and Jaakko Pimperi, at venues such as Tavastia, Nosturi, YO-Talo, Liberte, Faces Ethnofest, Turku Jazz, and PuistoBlues. Ongoing collaborations include DJ Hereill (see The Soul Hustlers), multivocalist Felix Zenger, double