Mama Radical of Helsinki: How Sixties Soul Built Little Bit More

A Driving Rhythm, a Custom-Made Guitar and a Self-Described Northern Soul Artist From Finland

Little Bit More runs on a driving, urgent rhythm and a lean band arrangement. The voice of Mama Radical, the Helsinki singer, sits right at the front. Released on 26 November 2024, the single folds Contemporary Soul, Alternative Pop and Alt Rock Pop into just over four minutes. Nearly two years on, it still rewards anyone who follows 1960s soul into the present day.

Mama Radical’s music sits in the playlist below, beside the classic soul, Motown and Northern Soul records this desk plays. Every article on the act is collected on the Mama Radical profile. Little Bit More came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Press play on the single, then keep reading for the lineage behind it.

---

The Northern Soul Lineage Behind Mama Radical, From English Dancefloors to a Helsinki Studio

Mama Radical works out of Helsinki, and her own biography calls her a Northern soul artist with no genre boundaries. Read from Finland, the phrase is plain geography. Read with the history in mind, however, it points at one of the great listening cultures in soul music. The Northern Soul clubs of late 1960s and 1970s England built a whole scene around rare, uptempo American soul records. In fact, many were pressed in Detroit and Chicago and barely noticed at home.

That tradition never really went away. It resurfaced in the retro-soul revival of the 2000s, when live rhythm sections came back into fashion. At the same time, a singer placed close to the listener became a deliberate choice again, not a nostalgic accident. The common thread is a trust that a groove played by people in a room can carry a song. Little Bit More is built on that trust, and early coverage heard it straight away.

Edgar Allan Poets described a driving, urgent rhythm from the first press of play. The reviewer also noted tight, minimal playing from the band and a stripped-back production that gives every element room. Similarly, Apricot Magazine traced the song’s inspiration back to the sounds of the 1960s and 1970s. The two reviews arrive at the same point from different sides: this is a record that trusts its players.

Where Mama Radical Fits, a Singer Moving Between Rock, Reggae Roots and Contemporary Soul

Mama Radical is the artist name of Henna Hartikainen, who also sings in the band of the same name. Mama Radical started in Kuopio before Hartikainen settled back in Helsinki, and the catalogue reaches back to 2017. Her Finnish-language biography describes music that runs from rock to reggae, sung in Finnish and English. A changing cast of guest musicians leaves its own stamp on each record. Above all, that openness is the key to this single. It carries a rock band’s directness, yet the vocal leans on soul, confident and never forced. That is where the Contemporary Soul tag earns its place.

The recording came together in Helsinki during the summer of 2024, and the players matter here. For example, Apricot Magazine credited Mikko Elonen with the guitar solo, played on a custom-made guitar that takes centre stage. Edgar Allan Poets, meanwhile, heard the same passage as smooth yet intense, bluesy and precise. On a desk that cares where a sound came from, that solo deserves attention. Bluesy lead guitar over a steady soul groove is one of the oldest conversations in popular music. It travelled from the Memphis studio bands of the 1960s into the rock records that borrowed their manners.

Hartikainen trained as a dancer, makes her own videos and artwork, and published her first book, written for children, in 2024. That visual instinct shaped the rollout, too. For instance, the video for Little Bit More went up on her YouTube channel on release day. It arrived less than a month after Blue Moon in Pisces, the single Chunedesk wrote about. Since then she has released Finnish-titled singles such as Joo joo mut ei and Rauhaa ja Rakkautta.

The Retro-Soul Company Little Bit More Keeps, and the Listeners It Suits Best

Edgar Allan Poets heard the vintage pull of Nancy Sinatra in Little Bit More. After all, the reference makes sense for a noir-tinted song built on an urgent beat. Sinatra’s 1960s records, Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) among them, turned sparse arrangements into pure noir. That is the mood the reviewer found here.

Two contemporary soul artists also make natural neighbours. Amy Winehouse built Back to Black in 2006 on 1960s girl-group drama and a live band. Listeners who return to that album for its noir streak will recognise the same instincts in this arrangement. Michael Kiwanuka is the other reference point. His 2016 album Love & Hate stretched 1970s soul into long, bluesy guitar passages. The solo on Little Bit More speaks that language on a smaller scale.

So who is this for? First of all, it is for listeners looking for fresh voices across Contemporary Soul, Alternative Pop and Alt Rock Pop. Beyond that, it suits anyone who likes a rock band’s edge wrapped around a soul vocal. It is a late-evening record, the kind that suits a drive through a city after dark. Still, it sits beside the lineage traced above without imitating any single part of it.

From the BlackSounds.News Curator Team: “Little Bit More is a lesson in restraint. The band keeps an uncluttered pocket and hands the melody to the voice. When the guitar solo steps forward, it lands as the turning point of the song rather than an ornament.”

Hear Little Bit More and Follow Mama Radical, the Helsinki Artist, Across Every Platform

Stream the single on Spotify or the single on Apple Music. Then follow Mama Radical wherever you listen and scroll:

• Streaming: Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and SoundCloud
• Video: YouTube
• Social: Instagram, TikTok and Facebook
• Home base: the official site

---

About The Author