Nederhop that rocked
Once again, the xenophobic American music press has let me down. Amid all the year-end hoopla, I've seen nary a mention of 2010's most vibrant, important, and artistically relevant cultural phenomenon: the Dutch rap scene. Even my beloved Phoenix is guilty of — let me just go ahead and say it — racism: Chris Faraone's epic list of 100 hot 2010 hip-hop singles was woefully Anglophone. "It's nothing against the Dutch," Faraone told me. "It's just that they should go back to their goddamn windmills and leave the rapping to us."
The closest we came to major Dutch rap coverage was a momentary flurry of hype around Die Antwoord, the mediocre South African novelty sensation who took YouTube by storm with penis-waggling videos — and even they were buried as soon as Kanye came back and distracted us with his own penis and its accompanying album. Why is all this Dutch dopeness being ignored and suppressed? Is Kanye really the superior artist just because we can, most of the time, tell what the fuck he's saying?
I suppose it's up to me. Here are the top five Dutch rap moments of 2010. You won't find this shit anywhere else.