I was at a dinner party last Saturday with my husband’s cousins and we were listening to music. Riccardo is a BIG hip hop fan so he quickly put some songs he liked (especially after seeing “Straight Outta Compton” a week ago). People started commenting on hip hop and the most baffling term came up in the conversation……..Nederhop!
I had to interrupt the conversation to make sure I had heard (and understood) this right….Nederhop.…as in Nederlands AND hip hop? This must be a misverstand!
It turns out that it wasn’t a misunderstanding. There is such thing as Nederhop and it is exactly like it sounds…hip hop in Dutch. My husband and his cousins quickly proceed to enlighten me with all sorts of names for artists of this legendary Nederhop music genre which wasn’t only popular in the Netherlands but also in Belgium.
This strange but entertaining music genre began in the 80s. It wasn’t until the late 80s when the first Nederhop song made it to the top hits in Europe. This was a remake of Madonna’s “Holiday” song by the artists MC Miker G and DJ Sven. The song is actually still in English, but, because they are Dutch, it is considered to be part of the Nederhop genre.
According to my research, the first true Nederhop song, meaning a hip hop song in Dutch, came out until the early 1990s and it was by Osdorp Posse. The album is titled Osdorp Stijl and, according to the husband, the best song is Origineel Amsterdams. This song is about the Dutch spoken in Amsterdam and Osdorp Posse explains the difference in words with lyrics such as
Schorem moet naar de bajes Dat is een grote teil met gajes
De nor, de lik, de Bijlmer bajes
Schorem is a synonym of gajes which translates to low-lifes. Jails are bajes, de nor and de lik, just like the jail in the Bijlmer area of Amsterdam.
The song ends saying het verschil tussen kennen kannen kunnen wij niet which is a play on words. In Amsterdam Dutch, people use kennen and kunnen interchangeably even though they are not synonyms. Osdorp Posse also makes up the verb kannen which is taken from the 1st person singular of kunnen which is kan.
There are plenty of other Nederhop hits; you just need to search YouTube to find a vast array of songs and artists of this genre. Here is one more:
If, perhaps, hip hop is not your thing, you might find the following song interesting. It is by Marco Borsato (very very Dutch artist) and Ali B (also Dutch), and it was for the charity organisation War Child. It is a little bit less gangsta but still maintains the feel of Nederhop.
Since I was a little girl, I was fascinated with languages and writing. I speak English, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and a little bit of French. I am a writer, reader, language teacher, traveler, and a food lover!
I now live in The Netherlands with my husband Riccardo, our cat Mona, and our dog Lisa, and the experience has been phenomenal. The Dutch culture is an exciting sometimes topsy-turvy world that I am happily exploring!
