About
E1 Ten is better known to the general public as frontman of Dutch Funktrots Gotcha! under the alias (the) Rockattack Ten. E1 Ten (born Iwan van Amersfoord) has been active in the Dutch rap scene since 1988, when the young rapper was discovered by DJ Fix (Orlando Voorn) and released his first album entitled 'Gimme Some'.
More than thirty years later, the singer / songrhymer, music producer, illustrator and entertainer has a variety of collaborations to his name. 24-7 Spyz !, Mary Griffin, Baskerville, Chef Special, TrackAddicts, DJ Dynamax and Gerrit Veldman (formerly Prodigal Sons), among others, collaborated with the Haarlem singer / song rhymer. And many, many others, not least The Godfather or P-Funk George Clinton himself! The latter honored the band Gotcha! in 1991 for the first time with a visit to their studio, where the seed was planted for years of collaboration with the group.
In 1996 Rockattack Ten left the group Gotcha !, after which he formed the duo Nicotine together with Kid Crash. A single called 'Snap Out Of It' soon appears on the label Freestyle Records, set up by Mars Hendrix and Rockattack Ten. In addition, Hendrix and Ten started the Ten Products organization, with which they organized the H 'lem Double A Block Party Tour, where acts such as Postmen and E-Life are presented to the Dutch public for the first time.
In April 1999, Ten made his first solo album, entitled "In My Own World", which appears on the French label F.U.A.S (Benelux Z-Rope). In the summer of 1999 he went into the studio again, this time in Amsterdam with the New York MC / DJ Dynamax. George Clinton therefore asks Ten to play with him during Clinton's performance at the Woodstock 99 festival. From that moment on, Ten can count itself - as one of the few Dutch members - in the extended P-Funk All Star Family.
At the end of August 1999 Ten was working on his second solo album in Paris, but in September of the same year the sessions with Dynamax were continued in the United States,
wherever Ten wants to settle. But in the end Ten moves to Great Britain, and a further collaboration with the other members of Gotcha! were planned, will be put in the closet for the time being. But E1 Ten remains very active during this period, for example he and Marc Sokpolie are making three albums under the name TrackAddicts in seven years: Hand Grenades and Butter, Rockstar Funk and Rockstar Funk in America.
Three years after his return to the Netherlands, Gotcha! with Rockattack Ten - now under the name 'E1 Ten' - back together in 2009 for a short tour under the name Gotcha! Allstars. The line-up of this group consists of Martijn „Homie‟ Bosman, Erik „Bone‟ Boon, Pieter „Pooperman‟ Smeenk, Vince „The GogoPrince‟ Smeenk, Joep „Ube da Dube‟ Smeenk, Rudi „RC‟ de Graaff, Fabian Dech, Koen „Koen Fu‟ Lommers, Arnold „Noldie‟ Smits and Pieter „I Repeat‟ Both and singer Janice Williams (Girls Want to Have Fun, ex-Painting About Picasso). In addition, the first two Gotcha! Albums are being re-released by Suburban Records. The Queen's Day concert during the annual Røring festival on the Nieuwe Groenmarkt in Haarlem in 2013, is another impetus for a new revival of Gotcha !. A series of performances at the Bevrijdingsfestival in Den Bosch and Rotterdam United in June of that year give the band the kick to work on a new album.
That album, entitled "Back To The Moon" is born in 2015. On this cross-genre album, which the band describes as "Futuredelic Rock 'n Roll", the band has reinvented itself without losing its soul. Influences from Bowie to Beck, from Zappa to Daft Punk, from Outkast to Curtis Mayfield and a hint of Funkadelic can be found on this album. The album is well received, and Gotcha! is back for a series of sweaty shows in the Dutch club scene. But after a year, E1 Ten decides in 2016 that it is time for something else.
Because now it is high time for E1 Ten itself. In recent years he has been working on his newest "labor of love": a solo project called THE LOVEFUNK. The death of his father is one of the incentives to go through his solo plan. And his desire for independence makes him decide to do everything alone as much as possible. E1 Ten is a man who has been thinking in 'loops' since his early days as a young rapper / B-boy. Upon hearing music, he knows how to pick out his building blocks and turn them into something unique. E1 Ten looks and listens to the world with an open mind, and makes it something unique.
With the help of his collaborators Michael Parkinson and Laurens Kagenaar, E1 Ten has once again created a cross-genre album. 2019 will be the year of E1 Ten’s THE LOVEFUNK: an album that explores, overlaps and connects the fine boundaries of the Blues, Soul, Funk and Rock and Roll. An album that can be seen as E1 Ten's most personal musical work, to date. The LOVEFUNK covers a wide range of themes, heavy issues such as: addictions, loss, death, paranoia, but the common thread: The Love, The Funk, The Lotus, The Mud ... E1 Let the world get acquainted with THE LOVEFUNK his vision of Blues, Funk, Hip Hop, Soul and Rock ‟N Roll, and reveals himself as The True Gentleman of Funk.