3. A Norwegian singer-songwriter (often written ASA)

4. A Japanese electronic/hiphop producer

5. A Swedish vikingrock/rac band.

6. A British dubstep artist

1. Matti Salo, better known by his stage name Asa, is a Finnish hip hop artist. He released his debut album Punainen tiili in 2001 under the moniker Avain. The debut differs significantly from the tone of Salo's later work, mainly because of its use of more "traditional" hip hop production and more straightforwardly political lyrics, as opposed to the eclectic and unconventional production style and more metaphorical and quirky lyricism of his other albums. Immediately after releasing the album, he ended his contract with Warner Music and has since been independent of major record companies.

In 2005, Salo, this time under the moniker Asa, released his second album Leijonaa metsästän

In 2006, Asa released the album Terveisiä Kaaoksesta, which is more about environmental issues and his relationship with the universe with less political commentary. He also released a mixtape "Foetida".

His latest release was out April 2008 and is called "Loppuasukas". The title is the logical opposite of the finnish word "alkuasukas" (meaning indigenous, native or primitive man) with a connotation of "man living the final days". The backgrounds of the songs are more versatile in many ways, with shamanistic, folk and gypsy rhytms siding with deep hip-hop grooves. Lyrically it continues the mentally expansive trend of the previous album. Asa's lyrics are politically and philosophically argumentative and anarchist, even postmodern. With his aphoristic and holistic stream of thought he is more poet than mc, related more to the line of finnish art rock writers (Alanko, Yrjänä, Martikainen, Liimatta) than his musical genre. He packs philosophy, history, cultural criticism, spirituality, science and grassroots subjectivity to an all-encompassing and schizoid flow of ideas held together only by his will power. Every song is a full thesis with its thousand plateaus, unsolvable word games and global analysis. The album won several awards in Finland, including the 40 000? Teosto award.

Asa has planned to release his next album, Via Karelia, style of which he describes as "slavic rap", in 2009.