Label boss and Jeugd van Tegenwoordig manager Kostijn Egberts is the most interesting person of Hotelier Otto Nan.
In this episode we meet Kostijn Egberts. We’re ask what it’s like to manage the most interesting and unique hip hop group in the Netherlands and he tells us what he has to say about being a manager.
The interview took place during a walk between The Melkweg and Paradiso. Those are the names of two of the best clubs in the city of Amsterdam. The translate into The Milkyway to Paradise.
Kostijn Egberts, in his own words
My name is Kostijn Egberts.
People would probably know me best for being the manager of the Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, which is a famous Dutch hip hop crew.
Right now we’re in Amsterdam, more precisely in the dressing room of
The Melkweg which is one of the bigger venues in Amsterdam. It’s also the place where I played for the first time about 20 years ago. It was here in The Melkweg – In the old hall to be precise: the other hall wasn’t there yet. Where we are now was the main dressing room, so for me being
in Amsterdam being in music all started here!
You don’t seem very happy
No, no I am. I just have difficulty expressing happiness.
If there was one piece of music that sums up my passion for this form of art and I think everyone should hear would be, Dusty Cabinets by Theo Parish. It more or less sums up what I really like in music. It’s just very simple and very straight to the point. There’s not a lot happening and it goes on for about 10 minutes. But if you listen to it and really try to listen to the 10 minutes it’s an experience to behold. When the first clap comes in, it’s absolutely brilliant.
These days I like to be in the background pulling the
strings. I don’t think there’s a definition as such for a manager but in
my case it’s I take care of everything for the band well except for their laundry and pulling their girls or whatever. but basically III do everything. I just talk to record labels to the booking agents to the venue’s. I keep their agenda I take care of their money business.
But, not only am I the manager of the band I’m also the label, so we can keep everything in-house. We do everything the best way we can for example if we think it’s best to give away a track for free we do that, if we if we want to make a video for a lot of money we do that.
We can just really work together with the five of us. I tell them what
I think is the best way to go from a managerial point of view and most
of the time we go with that.
The flexibility is very important but that’s also because we are such a close group of friends and we trust each other so that worked really well.
Of course it would be nice to have a band that can do an international thing. But it’s is really weird because they come up with language themselves, but still if you tell that to an English person or an American
we don’t even understand them, they look at you – what do you mean it’s Dutch – right no it’s not it’s sort of made-up
language.
It’s all about the vowels, the sounds. So yeah it’s very difficult to break internationally it’s it virtually impossible.
I think the most interesting person in Amsterdam is Joost van Bellen. He’s a DJ, writer, producer. He organizes parties and has done so for a long long time and he’s still at the forefront of everything that’s that’s new and happening in Amsterdam and yeah always being very supportive to new talent and he’s just a great guy.
We met a long time ago I don’t think he will remember but since then we bumped into each other quite a lot a lot of times I go to a lot of his parties he books quite a few of my artists and he actually released a record on one of my labels and so yeah our paths cross.
Check out Kostijn Egbert’s Label Magnetron Music
Find out more about De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig
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