Boulevard diary #2: Bossche street culture is different

Right by St John's, next to the Tower Stage where Theatre Festival Boulevard holds its talk shows and free live concerts, is 'Tent Purple'. That tent is different, this year. Outside, kids in baggy trainers are doing break moves, inside it is steaming hot. For ten days, Tent Purple is Cypher HQ, the home of Bossche hip-hop and street culture, also known as Dukebox.... 

So once inside, you would expect pounding beats and loud lyrics, but this afternoon the stage is an oasis of calm in the rather loud environment of house beats and church bells outside. Inside, in the heat, Len van der Pol (33) and Jasja Renne (26) perform an improvised duet between spoken word and breakdance. Without microphones, with soft music. 

8 shows in one day

While on the other side of the square actors with amplification are screaming their lungs out, the hip-hop scene is serene. That demands an explanation.

"What you find here, you won't find anywhere," says Liza Westeneind, one of the driving forces behind Dukebox, the organiser of this tent: "Everything we are doing here is new. Also for Boulevard. Because the set-up is different from what they have been doing for 40 years." 

She explains: "In the other tents, there are companies for three days to do three shows. We have six, seven, eight shows in a day. We have separately flown in people who are going to move around the venue here in purple suits to attract a bit of attention to this tent. We've been thinking about how we're going to dress this up completely because we've been given this tent of our own. That's a lot of freestyle of course. There are a lot of companies bringing those pieces that already exist. We just put here dance battles on stage and that's not necessarily what you normally see on Boulevard, but that's our culture which we bring here."

And what about those Bossche culture? "For me, it actually comes a bit from hip-hop culture." Besides being a rapper, Walter Verweij is involved in Dukebox mainly as a videographer these days: "I think there's a big base there. There are also several things with it, like skating. That's not originally from hip-hop culture, but I also see that as a street culture thingy. I think it is also constantly evolving. That more and more things are coming in. Everything kind of coming off the streets. It's a trade-off."

All elements

Arjuna Vermeulen (33) grew up with hip-hop: "I started as a b-boy. I also used to rap andgraft. And basically everything you do in hip-hop in the beginning, all the elements. You try everything, hip-hop, breaking. You try DJing, that was the hardest part. You need instruments and stuff for that. But the other thing is: on the streets and go! So yeah, I've been a hip-hop-hat ever since I was 12."

So Vermeulen's hip-hop love has now led to a thriving company that trains young people in the hip-hop scene: "What happens when you start professionalising from hip-hop culture? Because we have built a company. And that's really the biggest company you can think of, because we are not a normal company. I started up with one guy from my crew. I hire everybody from the crew and I can't fire anybody. Just can't do that, because it's my brother. I might say that to him: john, I can't give you any more jobs because you weren't there. But the week after, I call him and say, 'Joh, I have jobs for you', because it's my brother. I'm not going to let him stand on the street and not make any money."

On the road with the corridor

Colleague Len van der Pol concurs: "And in the meantime, we do now have together, if we really think about it, a whole scene created. We started with five people ourselves. Now you have a whole family behind you of 15 people."

Arjuna: "It's nice to see how those young guys are starting to look like us now. They are the same. They go to a battle toe. They are all between 15 and 20. And they don't give a damn whether they win or not. They are just on the road with the corridor and all that matters is the corridor.”

Pretty white

What does stand out about the Bossche culture is that, apart from Arjuna Vermeulen, everyone is pretty white. Arjuna acknowledges that: "Den Bosch is not very colourful. It is very colourful, but that doesn't come in the centre. That's in the suburbs, that stays in the suburbs. And I think, to do something there here in Den Bosch, there is a big barrier. In the Randstad, you're still in a place where it's quite normal for it all to live together. As much as Den Bosch wants to be multicultural, we're just still a bit segregated, you know. You still have neighbourhoods where mostly Muslims live, and that continues to rub off a bit. We're spreading hip-hop and it's getting better. But that's an even much slower fight than spreading culture. Just purely through the city you're in." 

Len does see Den Bosch as a separate city: "When I teach in Eindhoven, there are a lot more colours in my lessons." By the way, the Bossche scene also has roots mainly in the surrounding villages, like Boxtel, Liempde and Berlicum. The crew itself is from there, Jasja is from Breda. 

Difficult stuff

Arjuna: "Here, your classes are full of white kids. And then maybe one brown kid, but the problem is that out of 15 kids in your class, only two are left. That's about the balance that we work with. When they are seventeen, eighteen, there are two more. Probably one of that group is still dancing. Because break is very easy and accessible at first, but once you want to continue, it becomes exponentially more difficult. Because you'll find increasingly difficult stuff wants to make. At some point people drop out, you know. Percentage-wise, we just don't have enough people of colour. I think that's a real shame. Every time one comes in, I think, yeah man, we can do again, you know." 

Walter Verweij finds it less problematic: "I am white. I grew up with hip-hop all my life. I think I feel the same way about hip-hop. I didn't grow up bad. But we all have our things we have to deal with. Because of that, you end up in that group of people. I think colour says pretty little about that then."

"That's just a point," says Arjuna. "Not that I'm not happy with all the white guys coming to breakdance with us. I'm super happy with that. Just that diversity is just a bit trickier. You're in Den Bosch. That's going to change as long as we stay busy here for another 50 years. Then hip-hop will have existed for a hundred years. And then I believe that the whole city will keep up. We're trying, though."