About Me
Max P is a rapper / singer / songwriter and producer from Sittard in The Netherlands. He is the frontman and founder of ALIZE and MC for DJ Ramon / Fat Beat Injection. A white dude influenced by african american musiciancs and european pop culture, thinking on a global scale, hoping for a better world.
MAX P:
In the early eighties my TV introduced me to music and dance-moves I never heard or saw before. I was fascinated by the Rock Steady Crew, Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow and when I saw the New York City Breakers performing for President Reagan I knew that this new music lifestyle would influence me for the rest of my life. In 1984, at the age of twelve, I wrote my own first rap, using Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" as my backup beat. The MC, now called Max P, was born.
In the beginning (1984, 1985), most people around me didn't think much of hip hop, b-boying or rapping. When you're a white kid from a small town in the south of The Netherlands you can't rap !
But after a while, when hip hop tracks of Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Salt-N-Pepa and Dela Soul, topped the European charts people began to understand and appreciate rap music. For me life couldn't get any better. There was a great underground hip hop scene that was growing and growing and we could even go to concerts of 'Ice-T' and 'Tribe called Quest'. Eventhough I like it all, from 2 Live Crew to N.W.A., what inspired me most was rap music with a message, like Grandmaster Flash and Public Enemy. I like it when music is about someone's life, culture, religion. It starts me thinking and it makes me grow as a person, trying to understand other people through music.
In highschool I met Gordon/GMC and we started writing and rapping together at school parties. Later we teamed up with DJ Garry Krasovec and DJ X-Rated and we called ourselves 'Megablast'. With this combination of two rappers and two turntablists and sometimes two girl-dancers we performed in several clubs in the area. After a while we kinda split up but Leon (DJ X-Rated) and I continued for a while. At that time I still called myself Master B and the two of us called ourselves Max Poem (Master B and X-Rated, Producers of Everklasting Music) also providing the max of poetry and beats. Finally when X-Rated wanted to quit DJ-ing I decided to continue on my own and keep the name or short it down to Max P.
Looking back, the eighties were confusing years. My parents split up, my school grades dropped and I often had a hard time connecting to people. But in the same decade I met my very best friends, I became a singer, songwriter and a rapper.
The Nineties (Nothing but the funk?)
After the eighties I believed that the atmosphere on most hip hop parties was changing. The mood was getting negative and agressive. I remember going to hip hop parties where people just stood still, staring at eachother, trying to look cool with their arms crossed. That was not the hip hop that fascinated me.
In 1990 I got drafted for Militairy service. And when I was stationed near Hilversum I frequently visited the Roxy Club in Amsterdam. What once fascinated me in hip hop I rediscovered here in the form of house parties. A new way of people going out and communicating with eachother and along came a new sound. In 1991 I got introduced to a producer-trio called Team 3 and I was asked to rap on one of their hip-house dance-tracks. Our first single even reached the dutch charts and so we continued our collaboration for quite some time. One of the highlights was our TV performance at The Golden Stag Festival in Romania. I learned a lot about the dutch music industry from working with Errol and Mark and Waldy (Team 3) , but later I discovered that the dance music we were making was not my thing. It was something in between the hip hop I loved and the house music I loved, but combined it was some sort of commercial nothingness. It briefly satisfied the entertainer in me but it left the rapper feeling empty. I guess we all learn from our mistakes.
By the end of 1992 I joined a local funk band called Honky Soul. They were looking for a rapper and they found me. Our first jam (Read On) resulted in a track that we kept playing for over ten years in the same shape and form. Working with a live band was a whole new routine but I was ready for funk-school. In the nineties, all kinds of funky samples were used by Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and many more. When I heard that music I thought it was the shit and then my fellow bandmembers introduced me to the orginal material of those samples: Parliament, Funkadelic, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Headhunters etc. In october 1995 we recorded a live performance for a small crowd in the Radio Limburg recording studio. This recording provided enough material for a two hour braodcast on Radio Limburg. We hooked up a 16 track recorder during the session and later we mixed the tracks into an album. Our first and final album (Assoulted) was released in 1996. We used our gig at 'That Funky Fat Booty P-Funk Party' in Paradiso (Amsterdam) as our release party. With Honky Soul I played at all the hot spots (Melkweg-Amsterdam, Fenix-Sittard, Popkomm-Kln(Germany) and at many great festivals(Oerol, Nacht van Pinkpop). Honky Soul had the power to be all P-Funk without it sounding like a Parliament or Funkadelic rip-off. That's what made Honky Soul the fattest funk band of the Netherlands, at least in my book.
During my Military service I also met (The)Ard de Jong. In the baraks I played the drums and he played the guitar and together we started jammin'. I later invited Ard to my place and showed him how I recorded stuff with an old Atari 1040st and my dad's 4-track tape recorder. He then started recording and Cubas-ing as well. Through out the nineties we sort of grew at the same pace as producers. Between us there has always been this friendly competition. We wrote and produced a lot of stuff together ranging from trip hop to you-don't-wanna-know.
The nineties were all about experimenting, setting boundaries, creating goals and besides that it was all about the funk and nothing but the funk !
The New Millennium (Even change is changing)
In 2000 I got back with my former Team3 producers, now called 'Beatfreakz'. Mark has an idea for a great breakdance track and wants me to do the rap for the track. Attached to the whole project is the breakdance group of BBoy Maxim a.k.a. Kid Fresh, called Rockin' Nation. For me it's one big revival of the past. We shot a great video on 16mm film and we toured with a Radio538 roadshow, performing on high schools across the country. Unfortunately the single is not being picked up by national radio and sales are bad. The record company decided to sell the track to German based breakdance group 'Flying Steps' and in Germany it does become a bit of a hit record. This way the record company broke even on the cost of the video and promotion. For the crew it kinda sucked because that was the end of Rockin' Nation.
In the first three years of the new millennium I put most of my energy in recording and producing dance tracks. Somehow I got in touch with Garry again, my former turntablist. He was now totally into remixing and producing dance records. For a couple of years we have been working together and made some very succesfull remixes (Fragma - Toca's Miracle remix, Blank & Jones - Desire remix, Headroom - City Nature remix, G-Park - Got me Falling in Love remix and many more).
The new millennium brought a lot of change and never before did I feel so much affected by what was happening around me. Our 'Gulden' made place for the 'Euro', the Twin Towers came down, Pim Fortuyn got shot and life goes on. All these shocking events pushed me towards rapping again. Spitting everything that is on my mind. There's a war going on ! And only a microphone can bring peace to me.
After a decade of Funk, the Honky Soul funk-battery ran on empty and all the bandmembers needed new challenges. Since 1999 I've been creating breakbeats with DJ Ramon. One day he asked me to emcee at one of his gigs. It turned out great. I put my oldschool flavour on the records he was playing and the crowd really liked it. I try to use my voice as an instrument, so I combine rapping and a little bit of singing with making wooshes and special effects with my mouth. And when the time is right I just pump it up and make the crowd feel alive. In the summer 2003, Mo (Mo & The Family Tea) asked me to join in on a performance on a small festival called Biespop. After the gig I instantly made plans to form another band, because nothing beats rockin' the crowd with a live band backing you up. A couple of weeks later I talked to my friend Nick McGrath (bassplayer) to see if he was interested in my plans. That's the beginning of 'Alize'.This band allows me to think out of the box and just do whatever feels good. 'Alize' lets me be a singer/songwriter, an entertainer and a rapper at the same time. Hip Hop Hooray !
