donderdag 5 april 2012

LTH ; hip hop missionary through thick and thin

A 12 year old Lloyd Terborg moved from Paramaribo Surinam to Amsterdam Holland in 1978. He ended up in the infamous Bijlmer area of Amsterdam which back then was a brandnew housingproject. The Bijlmer was mainly populated with folks from Surinam en Antillian origin. A year later he was mainly doing what most kids were at that time and place; fighting, doing petty crimes, hanging around in the streets bugging out. At one point a burglary got planned by Lloyd's "friends" and he was asked to participate that evening. That day he wandered around with doubts in his mind about the planned break in that night. He ended up checking out a youthcentre because he heard some cool funk music playing. What he witnessed there changed his life......

Amsterdam Bijlmer housing projects

At that particular youthcentre ("J.C.B." in the Bijlmer area) there where some guys dancing like Lloyd never saw before.....next to a kid named Ulrich there was this kid would turn out to be the later Mr. Solo (Werner Themen). A few years later the dancing would be widely known as breakdancing. The music that was used came from tapes from American friends of Mr. Solo....soldiers stationed in Holland (a common thing during the Cold War era).
Lloyd, all excited by the new music and dancing, decided that night not to show up for the burglary. The next day at school his "friends" beat him down for not showing up. Apperently the break in went sour and a few got arrested. Lloyd saw it as a sign, broke up with being a small time criminal and started hanging around with Mr. Solo and his friends. From that point he started breakdancing himself. Also neighborhoud parties were thrown with the same music as they kept hearing from the tapes from the American G.I.'s. Lloyd became very much Solo's pupil when it came to his first steps in hip hop. The next step to making one's own music was made soon after, Solo already in 1983 had a drumcomputer. This was the BOSS DR-110, probably the first drumcomputer used for making hip hop in the Netherlands.


At one point Lloyd had bought his own BOSS DR-110 at the "Dirk Witte shop" in Amsterdam and started cookin' up his own beats. More rappers, DJ's, beatcreators and breakdancers turned up on the Amsterdam hip hop scene like Ricky-D, Zodiac (Jeffrey Roberts), Beatmasters, DJ Genie, Dillon Lewis, Rudeboy, Babyface, Tombox, Kay Leigh and All Star Fresh to form hip hop's first generation. Connections were made with likeminded artists in Utrecht (Mellow MC's), The Hague (Skinny Scotti) and Rotterdam (TC Boyz, Mr. B). Holland's first small rapshow became a fact in 1983...venue the Melkweg in Amsterdam saw performances by Mr. Solo, Ricky-D, Beatmasters and LJ Fresh. One year later a bigger show was held at the Aknathon club in Amsterdam which would eventually became a historical venue in Dutch rap history in years to follow.
Lloyd, by then known as LTH ("Lloyd Thinks Hard") is a prominent figure within the florishing local hip hop culture. He makes beats for several rappers, breakdances, raps en masters the human beatbox. Also he helps a English party promotor that lived in Amsterdam called Norville Small with organizing more and more hip hop parties. As true missionaries LTH and friends started spreading the hip hop religion far outside the Amsterdam borders. Meeting up on Amsterdam Central Station they just hopped a train to some city with a discotheque were they would try to persuade the owner/house DJ to give them some limelight. Mind you this was mostly without getting paid and just for the love.

LTH seen at one of many hip hop showcases in the pioneering days

 
Around 1985 LTH improved his beatmaking skills....using hardware like the CASIO SK-1, KAWAI
R-50 and the ROLAND series. With rapper MC Fafa (Brain Faverus) and DJ Curious Cut he formed the rapgroup Sonic early 1986. They mainly performed in Amsterdam but also joined rap packages with the likes of Deams, LJ Fresh and Extince that Norville Small put together to perform in other Dutch cities. In 1987 LTH entered the annual W.A.P.S. (radiostation "West Amsterdam Power Station") rap contest with his group Sonic. They end up as the runners up (in 3rd place was Divorze Posse, the winner was the group Rap Division from Rotterdam).

Sonic as runner up at the W.A.P.S. rap contest 1987
In 1988 LTH was asked by Rudeboy to create a beat that would lead to a recording done for the first Dutch rap compilation album "Rhythm & Rhyme - A rap compilation vol. 1". Rudeboy didn't want to showcase his own group Urban Dance Squad just yet on vinyl so he formed a special group just for this recording occasion called 167th East Rudeboy Pack together with LTH and All Star Fresh. The track "It's up to you" featured on the album. Another track on the album was also produced by LTH being "It's easy to rhyme by Too Tough Cheryl & T Rebels. Being represented with two productions on the first Dutch real rap album only shows the impact of LTH on the emerging scene in the late '80's.


LTH with Rudeboy Remmingon, Waterloosquare Amsterdam 1988

Despite performances with Marvin D as ML Posse and appearing on a rap tv-show through early European satelite broadcaster Superchannel with All Star Fresh, Zodiac, Mr. Solo etc., it soon occured to LTH that the pioneering days of rap were behind them. '89/'90 saw an end to the hype and the public's focus moved away from hip hop to newjack swing and house music. Especcialy the west of Holland saw a crumbling hip hop culture that dissapointed hardcore followers like LTH. The spontaneous dissappearance of rap party promoter Norville Small also added to this downfall. Ongoing rap parties in the east like in Atac in Enschede gave new opportunities and having met his future wife at these parties LTH moved to Enschede to capitalize on these new furtile rap grounds. Here he started organizing parties and booking all his old friends to do shows. A new group was formed with the Graveyard Posse that resulted in the appearance of 2 tracks on the rap compilation album "Exiles from the neverlands" that saw light of day in 1992. Unfortunately the Graveyard Posse's rapper had little ambition for a rap career and choose another path (he became a stand up comedian). LTH who had found a new job at the Enschede airport became less active with recording and performing himself due to this. In 1993 he started hosting a local rap show called "Traxx2damaxx" playing everything from classic old school joint to the latest joints.


A new found collabaration with Jamaican rapper/toaster Daddy Jim saw LTH producing and performing again. A selfreleased cd called "On target" saw a release in 1996 as a direct result. This album contained mostly ragga vocals but also some rap tracks. In 1997 LTH and Daddy Jim even won the very prestigious Grote Prijs Van Nederland award for best new rap act. The prizemoney won at this competition was put at good use for building a new studio for personal use. From this point LTH and Daddy Jim started using the groupname Herdley Everet for recording and performing.



LTH & Daddy Jim

During the nineties LTH gets more and more socially engaged with the youth. As a prominent member of the Dutch chapter of the Zulu Nation he starts educating kids by using the positive elements within the hip hop culture untill this very day. On the side he's still busy making beats and planning on yet new music releases. A true hip hop activist!

LTH with Afrika Bambaattaa