'Don't shoot the rapper!' - The 3 things I learnt from No Man's Land 2022 #nml22

1: The artificial distinction between pros and amateurs encourages exploitation.

In the Netherlands, 115 writers live off the sale of their books. The rest of those who call themselves writers do so as a side income. In pop music, the figures won't be much different. Writers with a few euros of earning on their Lira statement will not easily publish in a magazine for nothing. Although you will read pieces on this site (also in this case) that are written in the hope of donations from satisfied readers.

At countless parties, in pubs, clubs and other places in our country, hundreds of pop musicians do perform every night. Usually for free, or for a crate of beer and a few tens of expenses. It came up again during the tenth edition of No Man's Land in TivoliVredenburg. This small-scale Utrecht platform for pop musicians has grown into a household name over the past decades, playing a role primarily as a network and knowledge platform for creators on the less affluent side of the sector. Which is therefore very big.

For a crate to Middelburg

At a session on fair practice with Chris Moorman, founder and boss of the Popronde, it was about how much a musician is worth, and how much they consider themselves worth. The Popronde, which is a link between garage and club circuit, assumes minimum fees. Moorman explained that there are still bands willing to drive from Leeuwarden to Middelburg for a crate, all for the attention.

The idea that pop musicians will do anything for that attention is persistent. And unfortunately, ridiculous amounts of money are made on their backs. Aslaug, upcoming Utrecht singer, recounts how she had to do her best to persuade her band to come along to Hilversum for free for an equally free performance in a night programme on 3FM.

This is all because, on the money side, people rather lavishly sprinkle the term 'amateur' when someone cannot make a good 40-hour living from their work, which is so much fun to do. So, if we are to follow the payment practices of bands, the Netherlands has about a hundred professional pop musicians. The rest hobby around as amateurs. Ready to be exploited.

So from now on, just call anyone who takes their profession seriously what they are, and stop distinguishing between amateurs and pros. It's not about the annual income tax statement.

Fact of the day: since it was agreed that musicians playing live on NPO programmes should also be paid as normal (DWDD never paid), the number of live performances on public broadcasting has plummeted.

2: Men still hold the power, and that leads to constantly crossed boundaries.

Question from the audience at a session on 'Defining boundaries': "What should I do if a producer says I have to kiss him if I want a contract, and otherwise he will make me hopeless in the industry?"

To the question, the panel, which included a representative of mores.online, responded heartily with: "get out of there, turn it in, expose it!". Which, judging by the questioner's obvious tone, is not really standing practice yet. There is still a long way to go. Especially for women in pop music.

So those, as Laksmi announced from the stage, turn off their sex appeal when things get too awkward. Men never have to do that on stage. Quite a few men reading this don't think women should get so worked up about it.

That's something we really need to work on.

Meanwhile, it turned out that there is a list going around the scene of - mainly - men who have a bad reputation in various ways when it comes to dealing with women. Just as there seems to be a list (m) on which artists (v) who are difficult about it and who should therefore be avoided again by those possessing loose hands.

3: Rap is the only music style held responsible for social problems.

During the panel discussions at No Man's Land, there were not very many people of colour in the halls of TivoliVredenburg. That also depends a bit on the whole event: the Utrecht pop sector seems less diverse than you would think, if you follow the lists. Then again, in a session on Rap's evil reputation, there were virtually no white people in room Cloud Nine, and the audience was decimated to a small group of people, 96 per cent of them non-white. That may be because a few levels down, the beer taps had now opened, but it does say something about the status of rap and hip-hop, now the biggest (in streams and performances) sector in pop music.

Not that I want to blame the Utrecht pop sector for racism, but really taking more interest in each other would be cool. Because it was about something.

Rap, also practised in the national language in the Netherlands since the late 1990s, has a bad name. Gangsta Rap, Drill Rap, discriminatory lyrics, sexism, an emphasis on porn and violence, and stabbings and shootings causing many rappers not to grow very old.

During this session, led by PAX, it was mainly NRC journalist Saul van Stapele who took a hard line against the established media, and journalists who do not do their homework there. 'If a black person dies in a gang war, it is a rapper who dies, if he once put a bad rap video on YouTube ten years ago. If he played guitar instead of rapping, it will never be on the news that a guitarist died in a street fight.'

Disadvantaged neighbourhoods

Point taken, and it continues. Kim Dankoor, scholar and researcher of hip-hop culture, told me from her temporary work address in LA that it is striking that Rap is the only music movement considered dangerous to society. 'Heavy Metal' is also a violent subculture, but that is mostly seen as dangerous to the individual, while Rap is considered dangerous to others.'

It just comes down to this. as Mahi Khalesi (label owner) explained, rap music is blamed for the violent subculture it comes from. Myrto Semmoh makes it a bit stronger: 'Thanks to hip-hop music and rap, the decades-old problem in the slums first became known. Because they sang and rapped about it and had success with it. Before then, they were ignored. And now they are shooting the messenger.'