The Brussels rap group Stikstof had to cut their tour into parts due to the rapidly changing corona measures. During the third part it is finally time to present their latest album in the Amsterdam Melkweg.
‘Alles Broken’ is the subtitle of the tour, which after Amsterdam mainly visits home country Belgium. But since Jazz Brak and Zwangere Guy rap in Flemish, there is also plenty to gain in the Netherlands.
Nitrogen was acclaimed domestically after the release of their previous album Nuisance (2018). It painted a gray picture of Brussels, but at the same time the city serves as their muse. In Amsterdam they take turns rapping – sometimes they switch after two bars – about the intersection of the French and Dutch languages.
Within the sentences, sound and double rhyme come together in a hymn to the darkness. “Theft here by high-ranking people / Here you are cheated in front of your eyes and that’s the art here,” it sounds in the first issue. But like the title of their last record Family above all suggests, this time they also look inward a lot. There is an ode to the women in their lives and their friendship. Diptych ‘Spiegel’ (Jazz) and ‘Sculptures’ (Guy) overwhelms the small upstairs room with self-reflection, calm and chill.
Deejay Vega takes care of the scratches, Astrofisiks adds some extra elements to the production live. The foursome are closely attuned to each other. The crowd, meanwhile, looks a bit tame. Until the song starts that they named the tour after. Once the wild bass and drums kick in, a visitor even loses his phone in the chaos. Then ‘Everything Goes Broken’ after all.
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