Make: Kometenschmidt – Kalsarikännit

On November 7, 2024, my debut album as Kometenschmidt was released. That was like half a year ago, and I’m only now writing about it. Funny enough, I’ve had plenty of spare time recently, but perhaps I needed to let it all sink in.

When I was younger, I claimed to dislike hip-hop. Truthfully, I’ve liked the music since watching Beat Street. But growing up in the 1990s, my tastes gravitated toward techno and electronic music. Growing up in a small village and going to school in a quiet town in Germany, I had no connection to the ‘thug life’ or the crime-filled stories told in rap songs. My classmates didn’t either, but they still carried themselves with a ‘too-cool-for-everything’ attitude, mimicking the hustler persona. It felt out of place to me, so I never fully connected with hip-hop culture back then. Hip-hop became background noise—always there, but never something I really engaged with.

That changed when I started university in the late ’90s. I moved into a student residence and into the new age of the internet. My desk was crammed with two Technics 1210 turntables, a Numark DJ mixer, speakers, and the bulky CRT monitor of my computer. There was no space for books or study materials, but I didn’t mind. My dorm admin installed a network card in my computer, and for just 25 Deutsche Marks a year, I had constant internet access at a blazing 1Mbit/s. Napster, the DJs at our student club, and my music-obsessed friends opened doors to decades of music I’d never fully explored—hip-hop included.

Over the years, I experimented with making all kinds of music, losing my focus on electronic music but discovering new worlds. While some of my friends found success by sticking to one style, I wandered. I began creating hip-hop beats and instrumentals, though I always felt they lacked something: great rapped lyrics.

Fast-forward to my 40s, when I finally released my first hip-hop EP. Without a rapping counterpart, I focused on instrumental hip-hop, still longing to make “the real stuff.” That’s when I stumbled upon Looperman, a site offering free acapellas and samples. It was fun to experiment, and though the quality of most samples was mediocre, one connection stood out. A rapper whose acapellas I’d used reached out to collaborate. We planned to make a full album together.

But as John Lennon famously said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Life pulled us in different directions, and our album stalled. I was frustrated and eager to finish, but John (the rapper, not Lennon) was busy. Then, earlier this year, a friend introduced me to AI tools for music production. I was blown away. Suddenly, I had access to unlimited, high-quality samples without worrying about copyright issues. It felt like a dream come true.

This new creative boost helped me complete the album by May. I wanted to release it immediately, but I waited for John’s feedback on his contributions—he’d written and rapped lyrics for half the tracks. His response was bittersweet: he liked the album but wanted to re-record some parts. So, I waited again. Meanwhile, I fine-tuned the details and polished the mastering. By September, it was finally ready to upload, and on November 7, it went live across all audio platforms.

The journey to this album was long, but every step felt worthwhile. While I’m taking a short break now, I’m not stopping here.

The album is called Kalsarikännit, a Finnish word that means “getting drunk at home alone in your underwear with no intention of leaving the house.” The name came to me during the COVID-19 pandemic, but given how the world is heading, it feels like a solid plan for 2025.

I’m deeply grateful to John and all the other artists who contributed to this album. Without AI, this project would have turned out very differently. AI tools helped me generate samples, write and rap lyrics (like the track Love Is Stronger Than Hate), and mix and master the songs.

After 30 years of making music, I haven’t become a hip-hopper. But I’ve stayed curious—and that’s what keeps me going.