French version here.
Jebroer, an artist marked by a stormy childhood, turned to music at an early age, making rap his escape hatch. He started with some Hip-Hop singles, before changing course to diversify, signing several collaborations that reached top position in Dutch rankings. His voice is now used by major Hard and Electro figures and he has agreed to share his feelings regarding his career.
1 – First of all, thank you so much for your time and for agreeing to do this interview. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself for those who don’t know you just quite yet.
Merci beaucoup! Nice to meet you. Thanks for the interview.
I am Tim Kimman aka Jebroer from Holland. I’m an artist with a 1000+ shows/festivals to my name and I have been in the music industry for 10 years now with more than 300 million streams. I don’t like to promote myself like this but the numbers don’t lie…
I am a father of 3 kids and own different businesses, one of them is the successful music label « ROQ ‘N Rolla Music« . I worked hard to get to where I am today and I am certainly not thinking about working less in the upcoming years.
2 – Why have you chosen the stage name “Jebroer”? Does it have a specific meaning to you?
When you say Jezus in Holland you say « Je zus » and that means « your sister ». When you say « Je broer » you say “your brother” in Dutch. I am Jebroer and i believe in myself 🙂
3 – You have joined the Hard scene for a few years now but you are first and foremost a rapper. Where did this passion come from?
In the beginning of my career, I started making electronic hip-hop where we mixed different genres in one song. Hard dance was always nice to work with in drops or outros’ and I ended up with making mostly Hard dance / Style / Core because it gives me the right energy in the studio and I love to go crazy on stage with it.
4 – Your voice can be heard in many different tracks in collaboration with Paul Elstak, Dr Phunk, Outsiders or then again Yellow Claw. What have those experiences brought to you personally and which one has left the biggest impression on you?
I have the longest history with Yellowclaw. We came up in Holland at the same time and I made my first Top 40 song with them, haha! We’re now working on new music as we speak. Love it!
5 – Me Gabber sounds like a declaration of love to this culture, like most of your tracks. What do you most care about in this movement?
In Holland, « Me Gabber » means « my best friend ». It’s a story about two good friends that grew up together and in the video we wear the « Gabber » uniform. Gabber is a beautiful, Dutch-founded culture. I’m not a typical Gabber artist but, like I say, I like to play with the sounds and styles.
6 – With Scooter’s help, you created My Gabber, the English version of Me Gabber. More recently, Kind Van De Duivel became Child From the Devil. What does this transposition in another language offer you?
Scooter contacted me me to do a version with him in English and I helped them with that. So that came on my path and that was the idea. We went to the studio in Germany together and shot the video in Amsterdam and Tokyo. This track keeps on growing and growing till this day, it brought me a lot of fans around the world but especially in Germany.
About Kind van de duivel, after all the success in Holland and Belgium with this track, we made a German version Kind Eines Teufels that also got really big in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Timmy [Trumpet] was playing this over and over at all his shows and after some DM’s, we were talking about working on some music. I already recorded the vocals for an English version and I came up with the idea to let Timmy do the trumpets and [Dr] Phunk made some new kicks etc. In the video, the worldwide Jebroer comes out of the Jebroer factory. It’s time for me to go worldwide, I can feel it.
7 – What sort of experience do you get out of a work in collaboration with artists, such as Timmy Trumpet, who aren’t, technically speaking, oriented towards Hard Music?
I don’t really think in genres. I just do whatever the fuck I want. No cap.
8 – When it was released, the clip of Kind Van De Duivel kindled a wave of controverted discussions. How did you feel about this censorship and how have you overcome it?
I got into problems with the Christian community in different countries because they think I wanted people to believe in the Devil. I even got banned at festivals. I was headlining in the news because children were singing the song on school, and parents that told their children that they were children of god came home and sang “I am a child of the Devil”.
Priests came together to send a letter to the government to prohibit the song, haha! It only got bigger and bigger! Every time they asked me if the song was against Christians, I told them “NO!”.
This song is about ME. I am a child of the devil, I’m a rebel in my heart. I really want to listen to the angels on my shoulder but I got in a lot of trouble with listening to the devil on my other shoulder, and when I die, celebrate my life.
I’m a trouble child but it made me what I am today and I’m proud of me, I came a long way and always tell people that you first have to believe in yourself, before you can explore what religion connects the best with you as a person. I came where I am with believing in myself, even when people told me I was shit. Fuck ‘em.
9 – Do you have any ongoing projects for next year?
Child of the devil is the first English single of my trilogy album called “ZesSechsSix”! Thats “666” in 3 languages. I Already released six tracks in Dutch and six tracks in German, and now we are releasing six tracks in English. Together, this is going to come together to be 1 album, the release is planned for the first months of 2021. The latest single Jebroer X Harris & Ford – The Master was just released this Friday, January 15th!
10 – A final word for our readers?
Yes! I hope you enjoy my music and you can also go to YouTube and check out all my crazy music videos, enjoy!