Tomppabeats: All about the beats

The YouTube videos of his music have racked up more than 1.5 million views, his songs on SoundCloud’s website have been played millions of times, and his Vine videos have been looped millions more.

You’d think the man behind the music would be a seasoned veteran of the music industry, but he’s a Finnish kid living in Helsinki who works day jobs and makes music for the love and passion of the art, one day hoping to be a youth worker or veterinarian.

Tomi Lahtinen, 19, known on stage as Tomppabeats, was inspired by hip-hip and lo-fi artists like Nujabes, J Dilla and Gang Starr to start making his own music. He began making music at age 15, inspired by producer and DJ Nujabes of Tokyo.

Tomppabeats is most famous for contributing to a style of music not often celebrated; the style is often described as lo-fi, although the term describes many different subgenres. Tomppabeats’ style can also be categorized as house music, breakbeat or hip-hop, but it’s usually referred to simply as “beats.” The style is most popular on SoundCloud, a music-sharing website that anyone can use to upload music with ease of access for listeners and musicians.

Lahtinen’s 2016 LP, titled “Harbor,” is a 39-track album categorized in iTunes as Hip-Hop/Rap. However, the album includes little rapping; in fact, the only rapping that occurs at all comes from a sample of Soulja Boy’s 2007 hit, “Crank Dat.” Instead, the album is an array of beats, throughout which elements of indie, jazz and R&B run fluidly.

Seeing the “Harbor” LP put on vinyl last year, Lahtinen says, is his greatest musical accomplishment. When I asked him about this in a Twitter interview over Direct Messaging in January, he said, “People are reselling the vinyl records for a hundred bucks now. That’s crazy!”

The strength of the album, as well as most of Lahtinen’s other music, is evident in its nature. Many songs don’t have any lyrics at all, and those that do aren’t in Lahtinen’s voice; rather, they are simple samples extracted from other music, TV shows, or movies. From Billy Stewart to Passion Pit to Diana Ross, he’s sampled nearly every type of artist under the sun, as well as the popular Japanese anime “Cowboy Bebop” and Joaquin Phoenix in dialogue from the 2013 film “Her.”

As well as its ability to survive without many lyrics, the album contains many songs that are simply a looped beat or instrumental composition. Despite this, “Harbor” stays afloat because it is masterfully composed with diversity and balance in instrumentation paired with unique lyrical incorporation.

One of Tomppabeats’ greatest strengths is his command of innumerable concepts from different genres. The common criticism against artists like Tomppabeats is that their music is monotonous and formulaic. This stigma didn’t appear out of thin air; many SoundCloud-based artists produce one sound, one theme and one central idea.

However, Tomppabeats transcends this stereotype (pun intended), and it’s especially evident in “Discography 2016,” a seven-track EP available on iTunes that features an array of sounds and styles, from a ukulele to a grand piano to a beat pad.

When I asked him in our January interview for words of wisdom for aspiring artists, he said, “I get this question daily. Have fun with it. Don’t stress about it.” He advised against setting high self-expectations.

The beat-maker’s sophomore album, “Arcade LP,” is currently in production, projected to be released this spring or summer.

• Joy Dumas is a sophomore at Davis High School and a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed program for teen journalists.