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Despite the time, Lapland’s famous midnight sun was still up. During the summer months the sun doesn’t go down at all in Utsjoki, which is less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Arctic Ocean.

In the glow of blue spotlights, Laiti rapped while a crowd of more than 300 listened, some of them singing along and dancing. Like the majority of Utsjoki’s residents, Laiti is a member of the Sámi — Europe’s only recognized Indigenous people — and he rapped in his native Sámi language.

Laiti, also known by his stage name “Yungmiqu,” is the founder of the Loktafeasta rap festival. He first found fame on the television show Talent Finland, where he surprised the judges by rapping in the gákti, the traditional dress of the Sámi. It is brightly colored and often characterized by plaits, pewter embroidery and a high collar.

The festival brought Laiti’s Indigenous culture to the spotlight, though some of his fans could not understand what he was saying. That didn’t seem to bother anyone at the Loktafeasta as the festival mixed performances from artists in both Sámi language and Finnish.

Some drank beer and ate sausages and the crowd seemed to enjoy the summer festival atmosphere despite spells of rain.

“When I rap about my culture … I want to show how being Sámi is like from my point of view,” Laiti told The Associated Press.

“Because there are many stereotypes about Sámi people and I want to like normalize … the basic stuff we do and not romanticize those things,” he said. He added that he has not worn the gákti for performances for about a year now to show people that it is possible to be Sámi and wear whatever you want.

Europe’s only recognized indigenous people

The Sámi traditionally live in Lapland, which stretches from northern parts of Norway to Sweden and Finland to Russia. However, of the roughly 10,000 Sámi people living in Finland, the majority now live outside their homeland.

The Sámi people were oppressed for centuries by the powers that ruled and exploited their lands, including bans of the use of their native tongues and efforts to suppress their culture. In the past decades, there have been efforts to reestablish their rights, including the right to use Sámi languages which is now guaranteed in the Finnish constitution.

Today, the historically semi-nomadic Sámi people have modern lifestyles. The few who still tend reindeer do so with modern vehicles, digital tools and regulated land use.

However, there is an effort to preserve the Sámi’s cultural identity. Distinctive Sámi clothing was worn by many at Loktafeasta, as is typical on special occasions.

Artists rap in Finnish and Sámi language

At the festival, Laiti mostly wanted his fans to be happy and enjoy the music.

“I want people to feel joy, of course, and I just want people to be happy that we have this kind of festival here in Utsjoki,” he said with a smile.

Among the other acts was a duo comprised of self-confessed old school tango crooner Jaakko Laitinen and rapper Jouni J. They also reside in Lapland and perform in Finnish.

“I see a connection from the hip hop and the tinkering with words to the old Finnish like Kalevala freestyling folk poetry,” said Laitinen, referring to Finland’s national epic about the Earth’s creation.

“So that obvious connection and the Finnish tango … is part of our soul and heart,” he added.

A world away from the birthplace of rap music in the Bronx

Although the duo’s songs were a world away from the birthplace of rap music in the Bronx in New York City, their performance brought joy to Utsjoki’s locals and visitors.

“Music travels and music brings people together. It’s the magic of the international language of music,” Laitinen said.

Andrea Gibson, a celebrated poet, died after a 4-year battle with terminal ovarian cancer. She was 49.

Megan Falley, Gibson’s wife, announced the poet’s death on social media. The Associated Press reported that Gibson and Falley are featured in a documentary titled “Come See Me in the Good Light,” which follows the couple’s loving relationship as Gibson fights cancer. The program is scheduled to air this fall on Apple TV+.

The AP obtained a statement Monday regarding Gibson’s death that read in part “Andrea Gibson died in their home (in Boulder, Colorado) surrounded by their wife, Meg, four ex-girlfriends, their mother and father, dozens of friends, and their three beloved dogs.”

Who was Andrea Gibson?

The backstory:

Andrea Gibson was born in Maine and relocated to Colorado in the late 1990s, where they served the past two years as the state’s poet laureate, according to the Associated Press. Gibson’s books include “You Better Be Lightning,” “Take Me With You” and “Lord of the Butterflies.”

Citing a 2017 essay published in Out magazine, the AP noted that Gibson recalled coming out at age 20 while studying creative writing at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine.

Gibson identified as genderqueer and wrote that they didn’t feel like a boy or a girl and cited a line of their poetry: “I am happiest on the road/ When I’m not here or there — but in-between.”

Before Gibson died, they authored a poem titled “Love Letter from the Afterlife,” sharing in part “Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before,” the AP noted. 

Like all good love stories, this one starts with a chance meeting and ends with a reunion. It was 2008, pre-Hardy and Hiddleston, post-Bale and Grant; Jim Sturgess was a rising star and the latest handsome young Brit to break Hollywood. Having landed the lead role in casino thriller 21, Sturgess needed a love interest: cue a slew of chemistry tests with a roll call of beautiful young women, a process Sturgess remembers now as “the most exposed blind date you could ever possibly put yourself through, with five producers watching you from afar”.

Kate Bosworth got the role, but one actor lingered in Sturgess’s mind: an effervescent Australian called Teresa Palmer. “When you do those chemistry tests, they put you through it, so we spent the whole day together,” Sturgess says. “I was really hoping she was going to get the part, because we got on really well. She’s Australian, I’m English, and we were both in Hollywood going, ‘Where the hell are we?’”

Palmer didn’t get the part, but Sturgess never forgot her. And, almost 20 years later, Sturgess and Palmer have been reunited – for Mix Tape, a wistful romantic drama about two people who reunite after 20 years apart.

Told in four one-hour episodes (you’ll wish it was much, much longer), Mix Tape follows two teenagers, Dan and Alison, as they woo each other with letters and mix tapes in 1980s Sheffield (which means we get some amazing needle drops: the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Cure, Joy Division). Guileless young Dan (Rory Walton-Smith) is completely smitten, but Alison (Florence Hunt) is guarded, desperately trying to hide her difficult family life at home. When she suddenly disappears – for reasons revealed much later – Dan is completely heartbroken.

Sturgess, now 47, plays adult Dan: a music journalist who never left his home town and, despite being married, never really moved on from his first love. When he discovers Alison (Palmer) is now a bestselling author living in Sydney, he sends her a friend request online. Letters and cassettes are swapped for Facebook messages and Spotify playlists, but the feelings remain the same.

Palmer tells me Sturgess is “the kindest, warmest, coolest, most effortless actor I’ve ever worked with. And that dude really has great taste in music,” she adds. “He is that character – he is the real deal.” Before filming even began, Sturgess and Palmer were sending each other playlists, with Sturgess putting her on to UK rappers like Kano, Dizzee Rascal, Ocean Wisdom, Little Simz. “It was just like the show,” he says. “Twenty-odd years later, we were reconnecting.”

In his 20s, Sturgess made his name as the romantic lead in the Beatles musical film Across the Universe and opposite Anne Hathaway in One Day, but he has spent the past few years in roles that require guns and running – think Hard Sun and Geostorm. But Sturgess is made for this work, with his crinkly eyed smile and soft eyes. Last year was all about “rodent boyfriends” – well, you can take your Mike Faist, because Sturgess is the OG rodent boyfriend, with a face particularly suited for yearning.

“I’ve been working on my yearning,” he laughs. “I’m actually very attracted to romance stories, more so as I get older. They’re just so human – it’s literally two people navigating their feelings and their emotions, which is really beautiful and interesting.”

Mix tapes were a “big, big part” of how Sturgess wooed girls. “It works!” he laughs. “A mix tape was a really big deal back then! That was why I was so attracted to young Daniel – I was that guy!” As a teenager, he was obsessed with US hip-hop and guitar bands from Northern England; he vividly recalls listening to the Stone Roses on his Walkman while delivering newspapers. “That’s what’s so beautiful about Mix Tape – it is about that period when you first fall in love, when you first hear music,” he says. “Your receptors are just so wide open and everything is so important to you. And that’s why, when people ask you what your favourite band is, you’ll probably say what your favourite band was when you were 16.”

Sturgess had a hand in choosing the music used in Mix Tape and even taught Walton-Smith and Hunt how to make mix tapes on cassette: “It blew their minds. They were like, ‘This is an art form. And this is a lot of work!’” he laughs. “I was explaining to them how you couldn’t just get the music off the internet – you had to own it, all your mix tapes came from what was in your collection. They couldn’t believe it.”

Director Lucy Gaffy let Sturgess in on the audition process for young Dan; they picked Walton-Smith, a complete newcomer who will be in everything soon. “There was a real gentleness to Rory that some of the other actors didn’t bring,” says Sturgess. “He’s got that natural Northern swagger and charm to him. And it was his first job! He was so wide open and desperate to learn. Beautifully inquisitive. He was brilliant. I’m really proud of what he’s done.”

When Sturgess was his age, he was too afraid to ask for help: “I was dropped in at the deep end.” He never formally trained as an actor, but he got the bug as a six-year-old when he was cast in a production of Wind in the Willows. “I was not very good at school. I struggled to concentrate … I was slightly tarnished with the naughty brush. But I just took to [acting]. I still remember the sense of community, of making something together – which I still crave now.”

When he was cast opposite Evan Rachel Wood in Across the Universe, Sturgess was propelled to international stardom. “I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was just a kid from England, playing in bands – and suddenly this movie thing happened. Everything changed quite quickly. I didn’t really understand how to navigate myself through all that. I didn’t have anybody guiding me. I’d be invited to these big parties, but I would always not go. It was a bit scary, it feels a bit mad.”

Over the years, he’s been in the very good (Cloud Atlas), the worthy of reappraisal (Across the Universe – “I feel like if it came out now, it might have done all right,” Sturgess muses), and the very bad (London Fields, a spectacular box office flop overshadowed by the subsequent tawdry trial between his co-stars, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard). He’s passed on some big opportunities (playing Spider-Man on Broadway) and said yes to much smaller parts that made him happy. If anything, he’s learned to focus on the experience of making something, rather than the reception: “It’s such a rollercoaster ride … If your end goal is just to have it be well received and get all the admiration that might come with that, you’re going to fall over a lot. You’re going to trip yourself up. If it is well received, that’s the icing on the cake. I don’t really read reviews. I just don’t. I’m not trying to hide from them or anything. I’m just never that interested. If I read a bad one, I’ll probably agree, you know? Fair enough!”

At the premiere for that casino film 21, which was held in Las Vegas, he remembers his face was plastered across billboards on the Strip, on the blackjack tables at the hotel and even on his room key. What is his relationship with fame now? “It is easier,” he says. “I was definitely more famous when I was younger and, sometimes, I wish I’d enjoyed it a bit more. But I shied away from fame a lot. I had it at an arm’s length. And, looking back, I think I would have got more out of it if I opened myself up to it and embraced it, if I wasn’t quite so wary of it all.” Now, he is recognised “just enough that I’m quite flattered when it happens”.

These days, Sturgess is performing music under the moniker King Curious and his next film will be 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank, alongside Liam Neeson and – you guessed it– Teresa Palmer, who plays his girlfriend again. Is this what they’re doing now, a la Fred and Ginger, Kate and Leo, Hanks and Ryan? Sturgess laughs. “If you could just find somebody you got on with and kept making relationship movies … well, I’d be down!”