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Pier from Holland

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6 January 2002 No Comment

We speak to Pier regarding Hip Hop in Holland.

Where you from Pier?

Well my name is Pier. My hometown is Hengelo which is in the Eastern part of Holland.

We heard you catchin’ wreck on DJ Sandman’s mixtape and on "Echte Boter". What can we expect in the future?

In the future you can expect more mixtapes. We are also working on a cd with a lot of rap artists from this part of Holland on it and some more rappers.
And we also want to be on your cd Milkdaddy!!!!

How long have you been involved with Hip Hop and what prompted you to get involved?

I started listening to HipHop about ten years ago. I heard some records from my brother and from a guy at school. The things I listened to were EPMD,
Ultramagnetic MC’s, P.E., KRS One. I liked the fact they were rapping about serious shit. It woke me up. Like their is some serious things going on in the world!  I started mc-ing about 6 years ago. It began like this: My brother Ufo and Grote Helly and Kleine Helly wanted to start a group. They asked me to join
them. But I said no because I didn’t like the fact that I had to practice, and I did not have the idea that I would m.c. for serious. I just wanted to rhyme when I was in the mood. Well they went on with the group, they named themselves ‘Oostblok’. They wanted to make a c.d. and they asked if I would do some songs on it. At the time I already was friends with d.j. Sandman. And we already recorded two songs in his bedroom, rapping trough a headphone.  We had two songs called A.N.T.O.N. and Echte Boter.  A.N.T.O.N. was a song in the dialect from the area in which I live in it’s called Twents. Echte Boter (real butter) was a bragging and boast thing. It had very nice punchlines and very dope metaphores in it. People told me they liked my style of rhyming. And I just went on mc-ing. Sandman bought two 1200’s and later he bought a sampler so he could make beats. He started to make mixtapes and he asked me to do the intro’s . At this moment we are working on Sandmania six. Meanwhile we recorded some songs and we started doing some shows in this
area. I really like doing that.  Ufo knew some people from Club Innocent and he asked them if we could
organize a monthly hiphopnight. That was in 1998. Now we have a monthly open mic night. Every d.j. and mc can do his or her thing. And sometimes it ends in a nice battle. I also did some. I won most of the time. But the negative side of it is: They were always the same mcs. Sandman and I always wanted to make our own piece of vinyl. We are real
vinyl junkees.  That is the thing which makes hiphop, in my opinion.  Especially Sandman really puts a lot of time and money in searching and buying obscure jazz, funk and soul records. So we wanted to have our own piece of vinyl. We recorded some songs and saved us some money and put the record out. It’s independent, we paid it ourselves.

Tell us a bit about the hip hop scene there in your area.

The hiphop scene here in east Holland is relatively big. There are a lot of people who listen to it. You have groups like Legal Offence, Zoological, Twuo, Arka Sokak (Turkish Rap) we also have some djs like Sandman, Graaf, Technito and Adam. You also have some oldschool peeps called Bumrush. They
organize bustrips to hiphopgigs and they had a own magazine, right now they have a own store with grafitythings, vinyl, tapes, clothes etc. We have a
radioprogram in Enschede calledTraxx 2 da Maxx. It’s hosted by me and Sandman one week and the other week by LTH and dj Kaos. We also have some
guys who are organizing shows. There are also some graffiti dudes. I got busted doing graffiti two months ago.  I stop that for a while.(hahahaha)
At this moment I think hiphop in Holland is growing enourmously. It is since two years that cats from Holland are being recognized by the industry. But I
think its just the beginning. When it comes to myself, I dont necessarily have to be in the charts or something, for other peoples: Do your thing, when its fat I say it when its wack I’m gonna say it also.

In your opinion who are the dopest emcees groups in the Netherlands?

My favourite group from Holland has to be Two Outta Millions. They are really good. also
Brainpower can be tight, not all the time but most of it. Also Kay L is one of my favorite mcs, His cd was the first one I bought. And now I’m going to do a song with him.  I also wanna bigup Cane he’s one of the most raw, energetic mcs. You do not wanna battle him!!!!

What are your favourite albums at the moment?

My favourite albums at the moment: Quasimoto – The unseen, J-Zone- A bottle of whupass, Lootpack – the antidote.  My classics: Tribe called Quest-Midnite marauders, Gangstarr- everything,
Jay Z-reasonable doubt, Ultra magnetic mcs-critical beatdown, Grand Puba-reel to reel, Common-one day it all makes sense Favourite mcs: Mr Lif, Grand Puba, Rakim, KRS.

Have you ever had a battle, and if so what was your most memorable one?

The nicest battle i had was the infamous ‘battle of the banks’ (Battle of the sofa’s). It was me and Bart Apart sitting on one sofa, and on the other sofa was Rhymeo Ill and Beckhuus aka Mase. It was at sandmans crib, he was spinning instrumentals and we battled our asses of for like one hour. We were drunk and lifted and it was really fun!

Are you coming to Africa soon?

I will not come to Africa very soon. But i will visit it once in my life. I will let you know.

Any shoutouts?

Mums, Jan, Ufo, Sandy,Ali, Tjok and the rest of the Akbar Family, Sandman, Rhymeo Ill, Bekhuus, Bart Apart, Twuo and Zoological.

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