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All The Looks You Need To See From Amsterdam’s Premier Hip-Hop Festival

Fans and artists at Appelsap brought bold logos, intricate braids, and candy-colored sportswear.

Photographer Vicky Grout
August 19, 2016

Amsterdam might not be as globally recognised as an incubator of hip-hop culture in the same way as Atlanta or Compton, but the scene in the Dutch capital is no less dedicated. The annual Appelsap festival testifies to that. This year, the event brought some of the U.S. and U.K.’s wildest rising artists to the city — as well as well as a healthy sprinkling of homegrown talent — to give Dutch hip-hop and grime heads the party they deserve.

The photos here, by London’s sharpest shooter Vicky Grout, capture the on-point looks for the festival’s artists and attendees, but also reveal the diversity at the core of Amsterdam’s hip-hop community. In Appelsap’s 2015 book, So Fresh It Hurts, author Karin Amatmoekrim described the city’s scene: “We are undoubtedly talking about black culture,” she wrote. “[But] the hip-hop scene’s core was Surinamese, Dutch, Italian, Ghanaian, Moluccan, and Egyptian.”

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Scroll down for the images you'll want to drag to desktop: Section Boyz rolling up before their set, D.R.A.M. beaming like he just won the lotto, and and grime MC Elf Kid looking very pretty in pink.

Loyle Carner  
Swift (Section Boyz)  
Inch (Section Boyz)  
Deepee (Section Boyz)  
Sleeks (Section Boyz)  
Posted: August 19, 2016