Nardo Brudet wrote an anthem for Amsterdam: ‘People see a dark man full of tattoos and can’t rhyme that’
Nardo Brudet, a photographer and prison guard in a previous life, wrote a new anthem for Amsterdam. “I can’t compromise, I can’t make fun of people.”
Nardo Brudet stood in front of café Bolle Jan, near Rembrandtplein. Recordings for the video clip for his song Amsterdam† Van Dobben, across the street in Korte Reguliersdwarsstraat, is one of the monumental Amsterdam locations in that video. Brudet saw a man who clearly belonged to the Bolle Jan café and asked if he would come and sing the song there.
How do you describe Amsterdam† A life song about how in love Brudet is with his city, at first sight more in the style of his mother from Amsterdam-North than it would suit his Surinamese father.
Ron, boss of the Bolle Jan, responded to that of all older Amsterdammers to whom Brudet showed the song. How beautiful this is, but did you sing it? For real? Does that text come from you, are you an Amsterdammer, were you born here? “Then me: you hear what I just sang, right? They see a dark man full of tattoos and can’t reconcile that with the lying.”
The people who can’t believe it, do well with the video from Amsterdam view, also made by Brudet, under the stage name Nardo. displayed, the text is played back by Amsterdammers in all shapes and sizes. “They are not different species, they are all Amsterdammers.” In his earlier work Nardo Brudet also played with the prejudices and expectations of the public, and so on.
Where did the idea for this song come from?
“I was sleeping and got a melody in my head. In three quarters of an hour I wrote a text. Then I slept on. I woke up, I called Velibor Weller, who was with me in elementary school. We went into his music studio and recorded it.”
“It’s my story, my song of life. About how much I love this city. Quite a story, when I woke up again I thought: huh, did I write that, how? The lyrics focus on me really, if I’m going to sing it on stage I have to be careful not to cry.”
In a previous life Nardo Brudet was not only a prison warden in the Bijlmerbajes for ten years, but also photographer, graduated cum laude in 2004 from the winner of the Photo Academy Amsterdam and in 2005 from the Photo Academy Award. His father was already taking pictures and had a darkroom at home. But he earned his living as a plumber.
“My mother was a cashier at the Floraparkbad, later at the Marnixbad. She also worked in the hospital. My father came here from Suriname when he was 20. At that time, in 1964, my mother in Noord was called a Negro whore. Then my father knocked. My mother always taught us: if the love is there, go for it, the rest is not important.”
“My father worked at the GEB and at the weekend he went all out, making extra cloth so we could go on holiday. I went along to learn it. In LTS I wanted to be an electrician, but my father decided it had to be a plumber. In the practical subjects I was the best in class, I could do everything and started working as a plumber when I was 16. Without a diploma from the LTS, the primary technical school – how low can you be?”
before the Photo Academy there was a short episode in music. “With friends everywhere we always rap on the street. Patrick Tilon was there, later from the Urban Dance Squad. The DJ was Dimitri, after that they played big in the house. We were discovered in the tram.” On his phone he shows a performance see Freakaristic from 1988, at pop formula, tells by Linda de Mol. “A lot of expansion for a few years, we combine rap and vocals.”
From a plumber suddenly becoming a rapper and then a photographer, was that considered strange?
“Still still: if I want something, I go for it. I never thought: I can’t. My father enjoyed my time at the Photo Academy. When I showed him what I made there, he just said how much more beautiful it was than his own photos. His suit and hat were ready, which he would wear to my exam. He was murdered a week before, which was dramatic.”
In 2008 Brudet exhibited the photo series in the Meneer de Wit gallery Gangs of Amsterdam† “In people’s eyes, those were gangs. That series is about fear, about projection. They were just groups of guys from the city. There were huge rascals among them, but they weren’t gangs. I see one of those photos as the new Night Watch, which was also bought by the City Archives.”
“I got the idea from my cousin, who has long dreadlocks. He had trouble finding work. You couldn’t work for the police with dreads. A few years ago I was walking across Purmerplein here in Noord and saw two police officers on a bicycle: both dreads. How? That is progress.”
A year later, the exhibition of the photo series followed Slaves of Holland† “It annoyed me that people are always talking about the execution labor: that was so long ago, stop talking about that. If attacks are filed on 9 in Bataclan, we feel it in Europe, we see it as our people. But if the same thing happens in Iraq, we can’t deal with it.”
“I thought, let’s reverse the roles. I didn’t do that for the colored people, they know how it feels. It was meant for the white man. In those photos I showed black people in the clothes of that time, from the 17th century. And the white people were mistreated, they too were the slaves. I received so many reactions from people who know me: only now do I see how bad it was.”
mentioned from a short period in Purmerend (‘don’t tell anyone, you know’) Brudet always lived in Noord. “I remember walking through the Van der Pek with my ex-girlfriend. There they were building new houses. We go to that site. Forty-five square meters for 285,000 euros. Later I heard it went for 325,000. Change is good. But people like me, who come from here and unfortunately don’t have the duku – we are being driven out of our beloved city. I remember the first time I saw white people riding a cargo bike here. That was something.”
Shouldn’t you be more famous, more successful?
“My photo series have been bought by the Amsterdam Museum, the Tropenmuseum, and also by private individuals. Ninsee, all those people who are now active against inequality: everyone knows Slaves of Holland† But it’s from 2009, it’s already been seen. I was working on Zwarte Piet twenty years ago.”
“I cannot make any compromises. Things I don’t like: I don’t do those. I also can’t work with people I don’t like, I can’t get on with them. Then it gets difficult. In 2013, I gave a lecture in the Anne Frank House about Slaves of Holland, for important people from all over the world. There I met Erin Gruwell. A few years earlier, a major Hollywood movie had been made about her life, freedom writers† We bonded and she wanted to help me exhibit those photos at the California African American Museum.”
“That woman was a millionaire, gave Ted Talks everywhere, she knew Steven Spielberg, all the important people. We calculated that they had enough air miles to fly me back and forth to America twelve times a year. It was my chance to break through there. But I don’t think the infatuation. She was a workaholic. When she was here in Amsterdam, I wanted to do fun things with her, but they got work calls that took precedence.”
“I got into an argument with friends about that. They got really mad that I took that opportunity. I was reminded of what my father always told me: ‘Don’t lie and cheat, you are a Brudet’.”
He is even quiet. “Now I’m going to cry again. Not for America, mind you. For my father.”
CV
Nardo Brudet (Amsterdam, 1968) is a photographer and musician. And he owns a design furniture company, NardoDaVintage† “Everything in the higher segment. I have a storage facility in Duivendrecht and I sell it online.”
The city of… Nardo Brudet
Real Amsterdam
“Walk through the city, in the sun, and sit on a terrace.”
accent
“That is really Amsterdam, not ABN. Not Surinamese either, my father didn’t allow us to speak that language at home.”
Peace and bustle
“Rest is my place at home on the balcony of the couch. I used to look for crowds, now I get too many incentives.”
Rent from sale
“If I wanted to buy, it has to be in Friesland or something. I don’t have the money for Amsterdam.”
Import
“I immediately feel it when someone comes from Amsterdam, even if they have moved to another city. Import can become Amsterdammer, yes of course.”
Series
Amsterdammers like to complain about the rapidly changing city, but still want to continue living here. How does that work? asks writer Robert Vuijsje (Only decent people, Salomon’s verdict) in an earlier interview series with well-known and lesser-known Amsterdammers. This is episode 9. He previously interviewed comedian Soundos El Ahmadi, his old primary school teacher Ronald Sanders, Stephanie Archangel, curator of the Rijksmuseum, Cliff and Polo Chan of restaurant Nam Kee, entrepreneur Mohamed Mahdi and actors Jeroen Krabbé, Dilan Yurdakul and Walid Benmbarek. Read our interview with Robert Vuijsje about his series here.