Petri Jukka Mikael Laurila (born 8 February 1975), better known by his stage name Petri Nygård, is a Finnish rapper. He is also known under alias Dream (in rap duo Nuera) and as Travis Bicle. He has gained notoriety for his sexually explicit and misogynistic lyrics and his provocative stage shows (which often include nude women, pyrotechnics, drunk fans and giant inflatable vagina sculptures). His lyrical themes often focus on alcohol, parties, sex, women, pornography, hangover, masturbation, dissing Finnish celebrities and satirizing popculture and phenomena.

Early life

Petri Laurila is of Sweden-Finnish origin: he was born in

Kristianstad Kristianstad (, ; older spelling from Danish ''Christianstad'') is a city and the seat of Kristianstad Municipality, Scania County, Sweden with 40,145 inhabitants in 2016. During the last 15 years, it has gone from a garrison town to a devel ...

, Sweden, and spent his childhood in Sweden. After serving briefly in the army, he moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and eventually to

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, residing in

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...

and

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

. He found initial success in his online release ''Vitun Suomirokki'' in 2000 on "

Poko Rekords Poko Rekords was a Finland, Finnish record label. It was established in 1977, but ceased operations in 2009. In the early years, Poko Rekords focused mainly on Punk rock, punk and rockabilly music and later expanded its artist range to Heavy meta ...

" going platinum with sales of 17,000 copies. The follow-up single entitled "Kanava Nolla (antakaa mun olla)" was also successful selling 9,000 copies. His debut studio album ''Mun levy!'' went gold with sale of 25,000 copies.

Nuera

Petri Laurila started his career as part of the rap duo Nuera. He was known as an MC under the alias Dream whereas his partner in the band was Henry Kaprali known as Skem. They were active in the 1990s releasing several cassettes through Open Records. They also collaborated with other artists on the record label. In 2004-2004, both Dream and Skem joined DJ K2 in "YleX" weekly radio show featuring rap and R&B artists.

Travis Bicle

The duo disbanded as Henry Kapralin (Skem) moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

going into music production with "Turnin' Records". As for Petri Laurila (Dream) he took a new alias ''Travis Bicle'' and released an album in 2007 entitled "Committed" produced by Kapralin and "Turnin' Records"

Solo as Petri Nygård

Petri Laurila continued with a successful rap career taking the name Petri Nygård. After the successes of 2000 and 2001, he has had a considerable comeback starting 2009 with new download only releases. He also released in 2009 a full studio album entitled ''Kaikkee pitää olla''. His new album scheduled for February 2011 is entitled ''Kaikki tai ei mitään''. The single from the new album include the November 2010 single "Sarvet esiin" featuring Finnish thrash metal band

Mokoma Mokoma is a Finnish thrash metal band formed in Lappeenranta, Finland, in 1996. Their music also has grindcore and death metal influences with traditional Finnish melancholy. Mokoma started out as a creation of Marko Annala, who is the band' ...

. The second single entitled "Selvä päivä" featuring

Lord Est Lord Est is a Finnish dancehall reggae duo from Tampere made up of Tuomo Hiironmäki on vocals and his brother Uncle Tan on keyboards. In general, Tuomo writes the lyrics and Uncle Tan (earlier known as D Mon) composes the music. Lord Est has rele ...

has shot to #1 on ''Suomen virallinen lista'', the official Finnish singles chart.

Discography

Albums

with Nuera *1992: ''Nuera'' (tape) *1993: ''Nuera demo'' *1993: ''Nuera Underground tape'' *1994: ''Breakfast'' *1996: ''Nuera'' (EP) *2000: ''Honesty'' *2003: ''Own World'' as Travis Bicle *2007: ''Committed'' Solo *2000: ''Pillumagneetti'' (EP) *2000: ''Mun levy!'' *2001: ''Petri presidentixi'' *2002: ''Hovinarrin paluu!'' *2009: ''Kaikkee pitää olla'' *2011: ''Kaikki tai ei mitään'' *2012: ''Mun mielestä'' *2012: ''29 Syntiä - Kaikki vitun hitit'' *2013: ''Valmis mihin vaan'' *2020: ''Alaston Suåmi''

Singles

with Nuera *2001: "Upsteps" *2003: "Upsteps Reprise" Solo *2000: "Vitun suomirokki" *2000: "Kanava nolla (Antakaa mun olla)" *2000: "Rääväsuu" *2000: "Hulluna tisseihin" *2001: "Petri hallitsee liigaa" *2001: "Riimini rupiset / Sika / Petri pelastaa joulun" *2009: "Sanon suoraan" (download only) *2009: "Onko sulla pokkaa?" (download only) *2009: "Mitävittuuvaan / Tuska" (download only) *2010: "Kippis kulaus" (download only) *2010: "Seopetriii" featuring Emel & Aajee (download only) *2010: "Sarvet esiin" featuring

*2010: "Selvä päivä" featuring Lord Est *2011: "Villi ja vitun vapaa" *2012: "Märkää" Featured in *2011: "Reggaerekka" (Lord Est feat. Petri Nygård)

References

External links

Official websiteArtist bio at Poko RecordsJpop entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nygard, Petri Finnish rappers Living people 1975 births Swedish people of Finnish descent Finnish expatriates in the United States Dirty rap musicians