‘I didn’t know I could write, but I think I can’

Kind of apology from Bob Dijkshoorn (27): he has carefully chosen five albums that have influenced his music and himself, but nothing Dutch-language has made it into his selection. While he does rap in Dutch: in rough, funny and direct Dutch with a completely different lyricism than we are used to in Dutch hip-hop.

We sit at the table in his small apartment, in the echoing bowels of a massive building in Amsterdam South. Corridors and doors as in a strict hotel from a bygone era. Bob from South really lives in South, just like his manager Bob from North really lives in North (and is called Bob).

He muses out loud: ‘Spinvis is great, but to say that he has influenced me… I often think Dutch pop music is bad. It becomes art so quickly. How I write, how I use the language, is more inspired by books. By writers.’

He likes the rough. From storytellers like Knausgård or Céline.

‘On my album is Writer, about a writer who doesn’t give a shit. That is influenced by the diaries of Jan Wolkers, from the years immediately after Turkish fruit† He finally had some money and did nothing except write down in two or three sentences what he had done that day.’

That then becomes: ‘I’m taking money, I’m horny, empty paper.’ Eight words, a bare guitar riff – and it stands.

He was originally a guitarist, a blues boy who played in all kinds of bands. That rapping actually started as a joke.

‘I had recorded a funny rap and put it on Soundcloud. This came to Tim Knol’s ears through my father Nico. He invited me to his studio in Hoorn. There we have in one evening South created.’

South, his first rap track, with fuzz guitar and drums à la The Black Keys and crow rap that recalls the Beastie Boys. He left the song for a year, but then decided to send it to Burning Fik, the label of hip-hop artists Faberyayo (The Youth of Today) and Abel.

South ended up on a Burning Fik compilation, but he worked on an album with Tim Knol, opening the way to Excelsior Recordings. It album remained untitled. Dijkshoorn played everything himself: guitar, bass, beats. Except the drums. They are from Kees Schaper.

In the corner of the room is a guitar, on the table is an old Akai MPC One sampler, a square device, cake box size. He did it with that. With that – and the language.

‘I didn’t know I could write, but I think I can. I write things that I find funny, for example about a dog (Saint Bernard) or fishing for carp (carp fishing), but it can also be something that makes me angry, like Christians who had to go to church during corona (Church† But I do want to do something funny with that.’

Such as: Bob from South who stands in a church and gives text and explanation about the theory of evolution in an unmistakable way: ‘I’ll just take my pants off / and I show my ass / look at it: raw monkey skin.’

“I don’t think any rapper knows me. It’s not my scene either. It wouldn’t make sense if I start rapping about rough street life or expensive stuff. Then I would lie. I miss creativity in many hip-hop lyrics. Choose a different perspective than your own. Turn something around. Someone like Kendrick Lamar does. I often think: why are you acting like you’re having a hard time? You’re not having a hard time at all. Then you better do something funny.’

Live hip-hop also often ends in an anticlimax, he thinks. ‘I’ve seen good hip-hop concerts, but often one guest is rapping and the beats come out of a box. That’s why I absolutely wanted to be on stage with a band: a rough guitarist, a beast of a bass player. So that there is something to see.’

Where do those beliefs come from? Bob, from South, explains.

1. Stevie Ray Vaughan: Live at the El Mocambo (1991)

The blues guitarist in all his coolness on stage. Live at the El Mocambofilmed in Toronto, appeared on video a year after Vaughan’s death (1990) and on DVD in 1999.

“This DVD was often played in our house when I was little. I think that’s when the seed was planted that eventually made me start playing guitar.

“Vaughan wears a hat and a purple suit, played his guitar with his teeth, put it on his neck. All very wrong, a bit kitsch, but I was deeply impressed even when I was 6 years old.

“It wasn’t until later that I could explain why: if Vaughan played, he was gone. That’s why he’s still a musical hero to me. I haven’t gotten nearly as good as him, but I have that too: when I play, I’m gone.’

2. The Black Keys: Rubber Factory (2004)

The third album by Akron, Ohio rock duo The Black Keys is the first to hit the US album charts and capture the stylized guitar sound that would make the band great.

‘Put on my album and listen to the guitar riff in the first track: listen to him naked† That’s purely The Black Keys, actually. During the recording, I said to Tim: the guitar must be Black Keys. Then I would play through a very small radio, which compressed the sound. Then you get that Black Keys guitar sound.

†Rubber Factory appeared exactly at the time when I started playing in bands and has determined how I want to sound as a guitarist. I also see the opening riff on my album as a bit of an ode by Bob from South to what I did before.’

3. Beastie Boys: Check Your Head (1992)

After the pure hip-hop album Paul’s Boutique (1989) the Beastie Boys return Check Your Head back to their punk roots, with Adam Horovitz on guitar and Adam Yauch on bass.

“I’m often compared to the Beastie Boys, if only because I have a bit of a high-pitched rap voice, with a similar sneer.

‘The difficult thing is: I have to Check Your Head I’ll mention it, because that album has been important to my sound, but really we are only talking about one song, namely So What’cha Want† The rest of the album sounds a bit dated to be honest.

‘In front of carp fishing I wanted the drum sound of So What’cha Want† I read that the ‘Beasties’ found it by placing a piece of cardboard in front of the bass drum and inserting the microphone into it. Sometimes they rapped through a toy microphone. I think that searching for sound is crazy.’

4. Chet Baker: Chet (1959)

On the understated, relaxed Chet Chet Baker decided once again not to sing, but to let his trumpet speak on an instrumental album.

“Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Black Keys, Beastie Boys: they’ve been important to me as a musician, but I won’t be putting them on at home anytime soon. Chet from Chet Baker does. That is my house record, an album with which I live.

‘You need attention for my own album. I’m always jealous of musicians who can make good music where they don’t, without becoming muzak. Wilco and Kurt Vile can do that. Chet too.

‘Chet is an album that makes everything more beautiful. When I read, I read better. When I cook, I cook better. It tastes better when I’m smoking with a mug of coffee.’

5. Beck: Odelay (1996)

Indie rock, hip-hop beats, samples and elements from disco: op Odelay could everything. Beck fought his way free from the ineradicable’I’m a loser, baby‘ from his anthem from three years earlier.

‘I put The New Pollution hold on… Hear that drum beat. So funky! You’ve noticed by now: I’m fixated on drum sound. I wanted this on my album too.’

‘I listened a lot to Odelay when I recorded my own album. The most inspiring thing about it is that Beck is free here: everything was possible, nothing was too crazy. You hear that.

‘I was free during the making of my album, but I am also stubborn and very sure: this is how I want it, that is how it is good. on Odelay you hear Beck searching, playing and also making choices that are totally illogical. I like to take the musical freedom that you hear here with Beck with me.’