Fifty years behind the decks. The founder of bubbling, live at your night. Vraag vrijblijvend aan; we controleren eerst de beschikbaarheid.
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He started with records from Curaçao and hasn’t stopped since. Fifty years of music that moved a sound from the island to the clubs of the Netherlands, and from there to dancefloors around the world.
It starts on Curaçao. Half Curaçaoan, half Surinamese, Moortje is just 12 years old when he gets his hands on his first records and begins to spin, surrounded by tumba, tambú, salsa and the reggae and dancehall coming in from Jamaica. Music isn’t a hobby. It’s everywhere.
Moortje sells bootleg reggae tapes on the island, made for the car stereo. Soon people start coming back with special requests: this track, that vibe, a tape just for them. He realises the tapes are making his name. So he decides to make his own.
Bandje nr. 1 is born. Behind the decks at Discotheek The Sound and with Rubadub Music, his tapes turn Moortje into the most popular DJ on Curaçao. As more and more people from the island migrate to the Netherlands, he sees the opportunity, and follows them across the ocean.
From Willemstad to the Netherlands. Moortje brings Curaçao with him: the heat, the colour, the rhythm. He plays it for a new generation growing up between islands and cities.
Like a mad scientist behind the decks, Moortje experiments with the sound, slowing records down, speeding them up, mixing them into something new. Then he pushes a dancehall record from 33 to 45 RPM and lets it ride. Squeaky vocals, a rapid beat, a crowd that goes wild. Bubbling was born.
The line wraps around the block and you feel the bass before the doors even open. Inside it’s hot, packed and loud. Lights cut through the smoke, the floor shakes, and behind the decks Moortje plays records faster than anyone has ever heard them. Antillean, Surinamese, Dutch: everybody on the same floor, everybody moving at 45 RPM.
Club by club, night after night, bubbling stops being a sound and becomes a movement.
With MC Pester on the mic, Moortje turns bubbling into the sound of a generation. Antillean, Surinamese and Dutch youth all over the Netherlands dance to the same fast, sped-up dancehall. What began in one club becomes a movement.
More than music: a way of life. Around the sound, a whole subculture is born. Dancers take over the floor with fast, sharp moves and battle it out, like the women’s battle at Bubbling Mania in Imperium. Crews roll in together, dressed to be seen: caps, gold chains, bold prints. On schoolyards, at house parties and in the clubs, bubbling becomes an identity: how you dance, how you dress, who you roll with.
What started as an experiment on two turntables became one of the most recognisable sounds in Dutch club history, fast, bouncy and impossible to stand still to.
Curaçao gave him the start. Suriname came in later, and left its mark. As his life and his crowd grew, the Surinamese side of Moortje moved to the front: the drums of kaseko and kawina, the energy of the Surinamese community in the Netherlands and the parties where both worlds met. It gave his sets an extra layer, and bubbling an extra bounce.
The fast, bouncing rhythm of bubbling found its way into Dutch house. From there it travelled the world: into moombahton, into the festival sound of Diplo and Major Lazer, and into the reggaeton and dancehall-pop that fill the charts today. Follow the bounce ↓
Reggae and dancehall records travel to Curaçao and the Netherlands.
Moortje pushes dancehall from 33 to 45 RPM. A new sound is born.
The bubbling bounce moves into house and onto the big stages.
He slows down Afrojack’s remix of Chuckie’s “Moombah”, a track with bubbling in its DNA, to reggaeton tempo. A bridge to Latin music is built.
Dancehall-flavoured bass music conquers festivals and radio worldwide.
The same family of rhythms rules playlists everywhere. The bounce lives on.
Sources include accounts of moombahton’s origin (Dave Nada, 2009) and the history of Dutch house.
Label Top Notch releases the documentary “Bubbling: Bandje 64” about bubbling, Moortje and MC Pester, broadcast on national TV. The story of bubbling is finally told by the people who made it.
Off the back of the documentary comes “Plakken” by The Partysquad & DJ Moortje ft. Kempi, Adje & MC Pester. The single goes gold. Bubbling, back in the spotlight.
De Legends take the crown. On 11 March 2017, Moortje joins forces with Paul Elstak and The Darkraver as De Legends: and wins the Red Bull Culture Clash in a sold-out Rotterdam Ahoy.
50 years in the game, and still moving forward. Together with friends and the next generation, Moortje takes bubbling to the biggest festival stages. Same DNA, new jacket: heavier basslines, bigger drops: bubbling house for a whole new generation.
From the island to the clubs, and from the clubs to the festivals. Made for the culture. Built to last.
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Fifty years of Moortje. Fifty years of a sound that started on Curaçao, carries Suriname in its heart, was reborn in the Netherlands and still moves every party it touches.
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