Speech karaoke! Out of things to do in Finland, this is one of my favorites! Bill Clinton “I did not have sex”, Network “I am mad as hell!”, Dictator (general Alladin) “Advantages of dictatorship”. From funny fails of politicians to famous speeches from movies, this karaoke party brings you a long list of speeches to make sure you find something fun.

“Imagine that the audience is orcs, then reading an Aragorn speech would be easier”

Famous speeches from movies are my personal favorite, but I think I would never be able to make it easy if the audience wasn’t so friendly and supportive. It is not the place, where the listeners judge you seriously, it is a karaoke party, where everyone gets a few drinks and has fun.

Interview with the organizer – Julius Valve

To get to know more, I have reached the host and organizer of Speech Karaoke – Julius Valve for an interview. It was during the Speech Karaoke event, dedicated to Russian-Finnish politics. You will find out:

• Where and how the karaoke parties are organized
• How the Speech Karaoke team handles some sensitive (political) topics
• What should you do, if you want your favorite movie speech on the karaoke list
• How to invite Speech Karaoke to your event Stay tuned…

Can you tell how Speech Karaoke was founded?

It started a little less than 10 years ago. Originally, Speech Karaoke was made by students of Art Academia of Finland, who invited me to host their karaoke with speeches. Since that, I have been a part of the team now known as Speech Karaoke. Together, we have been to around 10 different countries: Estonia, Belgium, Poland, the UK, Thailand, France, Croatia, now we are hopefully going to Russia. For the first time, we have added Russian speeches, and we are working on organizing an event there.

Speech karaoke events, how often do you have them?

Our main event is around 3 times a year at Lavaklubi, a bar in the basement of the National Theater in the very center of Helsinki. Then we do private parties, special art events, and festivals. For example, we are going to be part of poetry festival Runokuu in Helsinki 20th of August. The event is free and it’s held in Bio Rex.

I haven’t seen any karaoke parties like this. Is Speech Karaoke unique?

It is unique and we have developed our brand for a while now. We have heard about some individuals doing their small versions here and there. Once we heard about something closely similar called “Spoken karaoke” in the US, but we have had no relations with each other. Some people tell that such events are only a tool for political conversations. Speech Karaoke is usually somewhat political, we do that too, but we are also a fun-loving Finnish drunken karaoke!

How do you select the speeches?

Normally, our events have a certain theme, and we add a bunch of related speeches. Speeches can be really sensitive, and we try to be very careful in understanding the subjects and in being tolerant. For example, one of our most popular karaoke nights was about feminism. We added about 25 speeches into our catalog. All kind of feminism related speeches, including historical, contemporary and criticism. Judith Butler’s thoughts on queer theory, Kimberle Crénshaw explaining intersectional and black feminism, some texts from historical Finnish feminists like Minna Canth, and modern ones like known black rights feminist author Koko Hubara.

The new Feminist party was also present, as well as SETA (sexual rights association of Finland). We felt like the feminist activists, who attended, were mostly pleased. The chairperson of SETA Viima Lampinen also wrote a new speech on the event – which we later added to the system. (Viima Lampinen is officially the first legally non-gender person in Finland.) So basically, we play big themes. The latest one was the Sápmi Speech Karaoke where we gathered Sami-speeches. We met and listened to the voices of the activists from three different Sami language groups. Some were talking about ratifying the ILO 169 – agreement which would give voice to the indigenous people and tackled some of the core issues on the historical oppression of Sami people in Finland and other countries present on Sami soil.

If someone has a favorite speech from a movie and really wants to add it to your catalog, what should they do? Sometimes people suggest new speeches on Facebook. We need the audio and the text, then we can make it. We will put the info, the topic, the speaker, and the language in our catalog.

So, how many speeches do you already have?

With today’s Russia-Finland politics event, we have just got over 500. There are now 503 different speeches in 15 different languages and dialects. Mostly in English and Finnish of course.

Sounds like an anniversary. Going to make any celebration?

Yea, we celebrated it by not having the speech number 500 as Putin speech. My colleague Oliver was like: “oh, we are not going to put 500 as Putin speech, we are going to have it as an art speech”. But we are going to celebrate 10 years’ anniversary quite soon. So the languages that you have, what are those? English and Finnish are obviously the most popular. Then we have some “disputed languages”. Like in Finland we have “meänkieli”, which has been ratified by the Norwegians as a language when Finns think it is a slang. We have three Sami languages. Then we have German, Austrian German, British and American English, Swedish, Estonian, French, Thai, Croatian, Italian, Russian and Slovenian. I bet there’s even more, but I can’t remember right now.

What are the most popular speeches?

It depends on the location. For Finns, it is mostly funny politician speeches. For example, Ilkka Kanerva’s “Political lie”, Timo Soini’s “Iso Jytky”, where he states that “True Finns is a party of women and men” with some sexist and racist rhetoric, which sounds very funny. People usually want to do something that is foreign to them – like leftists love to do right wing speeches and vise versa. It’s a lot about playing with different kinds of roles and angles. Overall, we try to keep some sort of a (political) neutrality. But when you do Speech Karaoke events and you start voicing human rights issues – we definitely have a liberal lean on things.

What are the most popular in English?

Famous speeches from movies! The ending speech of Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator, “Buy of Fucking Die” from Wolf Of Wall Street, and the legendary “I Am Mad as Hell” from the media-critical movie Network made back in the 1970’s.

What are the funny ones?

Bill Clinton “I did not have sex” is probably the funniest one. “Eat da poopoo” – the hit from YouTube where a pastor from Uganda is talking about how homosexuality is offensive and people are eating shit as a gay practise. Sounds harsh, but it’s a hit speech just because of its profanity and intolerance. People have a sense of humor and an ability to read situations. Before an offensive speech, we usually do a disclaimer and tell that we don’t tolerate any sorts of hate and racism. The most offensive speeches are usually the funniest ones –  the more people get drunk, the more they start to do Hitler. It’s cathartic to make fun of horrible things. We want to be fun loving, but political, so there is a bit of a tension.

I saw that you can have a random speech, how does it work?

If you ask for a random speech it can be any, in any language. You can also put some criteria. For example, for politics you choose if you are left-wing, right-wing or centrist and it hits the speech of your preference. Random speech, that’s tough. Can you give any recommendations for people who are afraid of public speaking? Yea, you have to just come. We are fun loving, drinking speech karaoke. If you are afraid to sing, I think it is easier to speak! If the speech goes too fast we can slow it down, or speed it up to the pace you wish. Choose a funny speech and the audience will laugh with you! And it’s ok to fail, like in normal karaoke. If people want to have Speech karaoke at their event, invite you to a festival for example, what should they do? They should go to our FB page, give us a message and we will tell the terms. Our prices depend on the situation and the event time.

What are your plans for the future, where do you plan to have the next Karaoke parties?

We going to continue regular events here in Finland and we plan on going to Russia and India. We are trying to find communities with interesting viewpoints. For example, in a new country, we do workshops, where people tell us what their national speeches are. Like with Sami, where we asked the Sami activists to tell us what to put into the system. We don’t want to dictate to any community what to add. In Finland, we have the rules on how to treat minorities, as we do in Speech Karaoke, we have to let them speak and tell their point of view. In foreign countries we act similarly, we will ask what are the funniest, legendary or shocking speeches from the locals. Every country and culture has their own cultural favorites.

Do you have anything to add?

We try our best to keep our events free for the participants. We would like everyone to have a good time and talk to each other – enjoy the social part of speech karaoke… Welcome! Website: http://speechkaraoke.org/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/speechkaraoke/

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