Pete Philly & Perquisite is a hip hop duo from the Netherlands[1] consisting of Pedro Philip Monzón (born May 28, 1980, in Aruba) as the MC/vocalist and Pieter "Perquisite" Perquin (born 1982 in Amsterdam) as the cellist, producer and composer of all the music. Their music is best described as hip hop with influences from jazz, broken beat and soul. They usually performed live together with DJ PCM (Misha van der Winkel), Remco Keijzer on saxophone, EWI and flute, Kasper Kalf on double-bass and Ruben Hein on keys.
Mindstate
Pete Philly and Perquisite both had musical careers before they met in the autumn of 2002. Pete Philly was part of funk formation Gotcha! and hip-hop group Nicotine and in 2002 took part as a solo performer in the 'Grote Prijs van Nederland' where he won the award for best musician. Perquisite released two solo EP's (2001 & 2002) on his own label Unexpected Records on which he worked with jazz musicians like Benjamin Herman (nl) and David Kweksilber. Pete & Perq decided to collaborate and in January 2004 their first EP The Mindstate EP was released. The EP received a lot of critical acclaim which stimulated Pete Philly & Perquisite to create a full album out of the original EP. Each track of the album would represent a certain state of mind, hence the title Mindstate. The actual writing, recording and producing of the much anticipated album took about a year, and included collaborations with fellow Dutch rapper Cee-Major (The Proov), Dutch singer Senna Gourdou and American rapper Talib Kweli.
The debut album was internationally considered by critics as one of the best albums ever to come out of the Netherlands. [citation needed] In March 2005 the album was released in Japan through Unexpected Records / Handcuts Records and in April it was released all over Europe through Unexpected Records / Epitaph Europe. The duo did create a very solid fanbase with performances with their live formation across Europe and also in the US and South Africa. Success rose because of their performances and hitsongs like Mellow and Grateful. Their success led them to winning an Essent Award and a Zilveren Harp. They were also nominated for a Dutch MOBO-award, three TMF awards, the MTV European Music Award and for the prestigious Edison-award.
On August 20, 2006, they performed at the A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise-festival for the second time, this time performing with the New Generation Big Band. In September of that same year they finished the Mindstate tour in a sold out Melkweg, Amsterdam.
Remindstate
After the last show of the Mindstate tour Pete & Perq took a break to work on their second album. During this non-touring period 'Remindstate' was released, the totally remixed version of the Mindstate album. The record, which was released January 2007, included remixes from several musical friends of the duo like Seiji, Bugz in the Attic, Nicolay, C-Mon & Kypski, Morgan Spacek, Laidback Luke and the Metropole Orchestra and was well received by both the audience and press.
Mystery Repeats
In September 2007 the second album, Mystery Repeats, was released in the Netherlands through Unexpected Records / ANTI Records. A Belgium release followed on January 21, 2008, the European release on February 18 and the Japanese release (through Handcuts Records) on March 5, 2008. The album entered on the first position in the Dutch album charts in the week of its release and the first single 'Time Flies' received a lot of radio- and airplay, especially in the Netherlands. Pete & Perq started their live tour in a sold out Melkweg again and started to play all over Europe. In March 2008 they toured around Japan and in April of that same year they toured together with Leeroy from Saian Supa Crew in Germany. In the summer of 2008 they played at well known festivals across Europe including Sziget (HU), Nuke (AT), Exit (SR), Lowlands (NL), HipHop Open (DE), North Sea Jazz (NL), Printemps de Bourges (FR), Gurtenfestival (CH) and Summerjam (DE). When they got back they received the prestigious 'Amsterdam Award of Art', the most important award of the city, presented by the Amsterdam mayor, Job Cohen. At this time their third single 'Mystery Repeats' entered the Dutch Top 40 staying in there about a month and became their most successful single to date. They were also nominated for the second time for an MTV European Music Award.
Break-up
In 2008 Pete & Perq embarked on another tour across Europe. The first three shows were all sold out as were many of the others. They finished their European tour in Amsterdam pop venue Paradiso on December 6 that same year. After more than 300 shows including supporting acts for artists like James Brown and Kanye West, the duo ended their partnership in the Autumn of 2009 with their 'Final Celebration Tour'.
Reunion
Pete Philly & Perquisite decided to get back together in 2023 for a big reunion show at AFAS Live, Amsterdam on November 17, 2023. They also started working on their third studio album, which is planned for release on May 3rd 2024. The duo also announced a European album release tour, which will take place in May/June and which will include five Dutch cities as well as Berlin (DE), Hamburg (DE), Antwerp (BE), Paris (FR) and London (UK).
