We are on a ship that, according to the voice from the loudspeaker, will soon leave the harbor for a two-hour trip, from Paradiso, Amsterdam, to a southern destination. ‘We’ are the audience with mainly supporters between five and twenty-five years old, a few are older, the majority consists of dedicated teenagers. The crew is formed by the members of Broederliefde, from Spangen, Rotterdam.
Their boat isn’t a ‘Love Boat’ or freighter, it turns out, it’s a party boat. The music on board is so exuberant and the group rushes through the repertoire so smoothly that afterwards, once the end point has been reached, the fans continue to dance even without music.
Broederliefde performed in Paradiso on Friday evening, and tackled it big. Smoke cannons sprayed thick jets of white mist into the hall with a lot of noise. There was a gospel choir of six members plus a conductor, several DJs, a full band, and there were the four rappers themselves, occasionally supplemented by a violinist, friends and colleagues. On the stage, which was not too large, a continuous swirl of jumping, swaying and dancing group members could be seen, without choreography, but in spontaneous bursts of zest for life.
The band, founded in 2012, consists of rappers Emms, Jerr, Sjaf and Mella and DJ Edson. The members of the collective grew up in Spangen, their family comes from Curaçao, Cape Verde and Dominica. That background leads to a versatile language (English, Spanish, Dutch, Papiamentu) and a rich rhythmic basis of their music, which can be heard in all songs: rhythms with percussive side jumps that can eventually make you sway your hips.
The eighth album of Broederliefde was released at the end of last year Beach On The Maas. The group has had steady hit success in recent years – with songs like ‘Jungle’, ‘Alaka’ and ‘Bikini’ – and is now nominated for an Edison in the hip-hop category (to be awarded on Monday evening).
Paradiso showed what makes the group so attractive live. Brotherly love mixes hip-hop with Caribbean rhythms, but also with a traditional Dutch phenomenon: singing along to the lyrics and dancing one after the other. The crowd’s vocals easily drowned out the group’s in songs like ‘Mi No Lob’ (‘I don’t feel like it’) shouted to each other’s faces by young fans. This created an atmosphere that was both Caribbean/Cape Verdean and Dutch, although this was not about the ‘Little café on the harbour’ but about a ‘little beach on the Maas’.