House pioneer Eddy de Clercq: ‘What touches me is percussion and melody, it doesn’t have to be a house kick’

When he was twelve Eddy de Clercq danced to reggae and jazz, when he was fifteen he went to the Congolese bars of Ghent where rumba played. In the Brussels clubs where he played from the age of sixteen, Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango were the names of the moment. De Clercq (66) is convinced that in the Belgium of the seventies he received ‘the best musical education a DJ could wish for’.

Not that he immediately immersed himself in African music. “There was so much other music,” says the house pioneer between cabinets full of vinyl in his building on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Initially he played disco, but in 1987 he was one of the founders of the RoXY and emerged as one of the most important quartermasters for the house and DJ scene in Amsterdam. “Yet that music was always linked to African or Afro-Cuban. Disco has a basis in Latin and African rhythms. In the early nineties there was tribal house that was really about trance, with a lot of African influence. The dance music that touches me is always a combination of percussion and melody. There is no need for a house kick.”

He just wants to say: that’s his new album Afrotronic is a mixture of electronic music and diverse African styles is a logical consequence of fifty years of musical development. But also from corona. And a visit to South Africa in 1996 that marked a turning point in his life.

Also read: ‘Professor Party’ taught Amsterdam to dance

Where did the urge to make a new record come from?

“Hunger. Sentence. The last time was Passport, in 2001 on BlueNote. I’ve done all kinds of projects in the meantime, but such a complete album with my own music must have a guideline. If there is and I have enough convincing tracks, I want to release it as a product, as a vinyl album. The common thread of this record is African music, from north to south. It is of course not purely African music. I am a producer and enthusiast. I recorded it with singers, with musicians in studios and with samples from old records and field recordings.”

Was it also a typical corona project?

“It was a very important period for me. I loved it, it was liberating. No stress to meet obligations, to people who want to hear you play somewhere. I started listening to old records again, looking for new music online.”

Wait a second. ‘Professor party’ did not miss the nightlife? Is running not a primary need?

“No not anymore. Some people even think I stopped years ago, but I just play in places where I can come into my own. I don’t do bookings that are chosen for me by managers or anything. The financial incentive to run three times a week is long gone. I’m just doing it for fun now.”

What did the rest period of corona bring you?

“I started digging back into my own archive. I came across music that I made fifteen years ago, of which I thought: why didn’t I do something with it? †Coral Reef‘ for example is the first song I ever recorded in South Africa.

“It started with a poem I wrote in English. I wanted music under that. In South Africa I got in touch with two young opera singers, Yemu Matibe and Alungile Sixishe. They are Xhosa and that language has such a beautiful rhythm and sound. So I had that text translated and they sang it and played it with other musicians. Later we also added a libretto by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas† So insanely beautiful. That version ended up on the album.”

You have a special bond with South Africa. How did it come about?

„In 1996 I was invited to a rave in Durban† I came from a hectic period. The RoXY was still around, I played all over the world, was a resident DJ in New York clubs, I had played every week for four years at the Cocoricò, in Riccione, Italy. I was never home, a nomad.

“What I remember is the light in Durban. A dazzling world when I got off the plane. And those colors! Everything and everyone together. It was advised against me from all sides, South Africa would be too dangerous. But that rave was such a captivating, optimistic experience. It was shortly after the first democratic elections and I was introduced to a very different musical culture. I played house, trance, techno and the South African DJs played Kwaito and a kind of hip-hop-like disco. That worked magically.”

You have kept coming and have had a house there since 2001. What are you doing over there?

“There I go to escape the winter, like the swallows. Sometimes I play, I meet a lot of musicians and DJs. And I’m going on a record hunt. At the International Library of African Music Rhodes University commissioned me to sort out and compile their 78rpm records. That collection of township jive and jazz from the forties and fifties is exceptional. You are more likely to find a diamond in the desert than a township 78 rpm record in South Africa.”

on Afrotronic In addition to South African music, West and North African influences can also be heard, such as in the song ‘Ibrahim’, which takes its inspiration from the call of the muezzin from the minaret. More than before, De Clercq made use of live music instead of samples. The whole sounds in jazzy downtempo, with deep house and amapiano, the popular South African house variant. A separate album features remixes by DJ Orlando Voorn who combines techno and amapiano.

The crowd in the club is from a completely different generation. In addition, they have been at home for two years. Can you still serve them?

“I have often wondered what you would do now as a twenty-year-old. What music do you want to hear when you’ve been sitting at home for two years? There will be a group that just wants to hoot. But also a group that, like me, does not like mass-produced products and likes to look for the edges. I serve that. I recently played my new music at Mary Go Wild (Amsterdam music store and platform for club culture, ed.) and it caught on. Before me, a young girl played with whom I actually heard all the sounds of Todd Terry (American house pioneer, ed.), but in new grooves. I hear the same development in drum ‘n bass, techno and in South African clubs. This generation has a huge love for the sound of thirty years ago.”

Now you will be prompted to spin again. Do you still want to?

“Certainly, if it suits me. In October 2021 I played a palazzo at a symposium in Rome. That was a good party. If they ask me for a benefit for Ukraine, I’m in the front, and if a nice festival asks me, I’ll come too. But I no longer have to go to Dancing de Lamme Doorzakker in Steenokkerzeel.”

Afrotronic by Eddy de Clercq & Friends will be released on vinyl on March 31st.