Decennium covers ten years of Political Cartoons by TRIK, known for his appearances in the Dutch weekly Nieuwe Revu. A small square is all he needs to create an image that cuts straight to the heart of the matter. Intriguingly, this collection of his best work comes a mixtape by Swotteam. DJ Knowledge and Mista Sweet bring their hiphop skills to the party, dropping dope beats & scratches spiced up with TRIK related news blurbs.

Booktunes had a little chat with Mister TRIK, aka Raymond Hendriks, in his Haarlem studio at Nieuwe Vide - homebase of Booktunes' very own SLEM and Ytje. We found out that back in the day, before moving to pen and paper, he used to be a rapper in the scene who dabbled in a little, but unhealthy, dose of gabber too.

TRIK: I had a nice time in the Zwolle scene. Dutch hiphop wasn't as common as it is nowadays, it was all English back then. Even Sticks & Jawat, when they were coming up, used to rap in English. It was when I was at the art acadamy in Kampen that I found out that drawing was my best talent.

Booktunes: And now there's a hiphop mixtape made especially for your book Decennium: 'Straight up Newsflash Hiphop'.

TRIK: Yep, made by the Swotteam, a DJ crew well known in the oldschool hiphop and breakers scene. I'm a big fan of the music they play - their Start The Madness mixtape made a big impression on me, so I was very happy to have them cutting up the news items and lacing them through the mix especially for this occasion.

Booktunes: Your cartoons are quite hard and direct, and therefore quite like the rap music you like so much. The political message they both share tops off this simple comparison.

TRIK: Yes indeed, but as a cartoonist I feel much more capable of saying the things I want to say and putting the question marks in the right places. I think another similarity between the two artforms is the sample based material. I tend to see my own cartoon as a sample of the situation it addresses.

Give us a shout and get the book for free. Signed & with CD!!
Order the book at Bol or get it from your local Dutch bookstore.
The mixtape is a free Booktunes download for which we say thanks to TRIK & Swotteam.
TRIK's favorite classic Swotteam mixtape is available at hiphopinjesmoel.com.

For more info on TRIK please click the link. For more info on Swotteam click the bird.

text by E. de Loor / transl. by W. Georgi / artwork by TRIK / music by Swotteam