As fast as Harry Mack can rap, no, Mark Rutte didn’t save that. But it didn’t matter much. ‘s guest The Evening Show with Arjen Lubach was an American rapper on Monday evening, that is Harry Mack. A freestyle rapper, which in this case means that he quickly devises and recites a text while improvising. Recitation sounds a bit stale, you could also say vomit or vomit, but that would give the impression that what he raps is complete nonsense or something completely incoherent, but it is not.
Arjen Lubach – he is “a big fan” – asked Harry Mack to demonstrate his art. Five people from the audience were allowed to write any word on a sign, and Mack would come up with a text on the spot. Lubach himself kicked off with face mask deal. spacebiscuits, Hogwarts house and Evening show were the other words. I give it to you to make some sense out of that, but damn it worked.
Also read: Prime Minister Rutte at Op1: vague, technical and a striking moment
Applause, credits, quickly to the commercial and then came the special broadcast of On 1 at the Cat House. A one-on-one by Sven Kockelmann with Prime Minister Mark Rutte, because Sven’s regular co-presenter Fidan Ekiz was not there. For whose undisclosed reasons that was, I have no idea. Just like guessing at the answer to a few more whys. Why did Rutte want a live interview on television of just under an hour that lasted longer than sixty minutes? Why now? Why with Sven? Halfway through the conversation, the prime minister said he had considered giving a Tower Room speech on Monday evening, as he did twice during the corona crisis. But, he said, the disadvantage of this is that no one can say anything back and he liked it so much that Sven immediately asked him “firm and critical” questions. He also said exactly as he knew him. For a firm, critical interviewer that must feel like a wet kiss to death.
Stop flaps between breaths
It cannot be compared entirely with Harry Mack’s performance, because Mark Rutte could pretty much think in advance which words would be written on his plate. In any case, a lot of compositions with crisis. Climate, asylum, energy, gas price, Ukraine. Furthermore, there was to be expected listening tour (invented by Sigrid Kaag), trust and who knows, something with rotting or rubbing up. Words that don’t rhyme very well, but he did a lot better than you would expect from someone with a 3.3 on his report card.
The crux of à l’improviste scribbling a text is that you have a few stop pieces at your disposal that you can always throw between breaths, or just use when you are short of text. Think of: “That is decided by the voter”, “If I may for a moment”, “Let’s go back to the beginning”, “Here I have to pull two things apart.” Then you can start your own storyline. Asking yourself rhetorical questions is also a brilliant move and as far as I know there is no word for that style yet. “Mark, where have you been all this time?” “Mark, you should be with us for a while now.” “What can you blame me for?” Sentences without a question mark, because of course there is no real answer. Oh yes, smart too, casually plait a claim of authority into your sentence. So talk, talk, talk – “I called Zelensky this afternoon” – talk talk talk. For the chorus you can always say something like “financially healthy and strong”, “all together”, “because I like to work together” (rhymes!).
Is it incoherent what Mark Rutte said? I would say: quite the contrary. He didn’t let himself be fooled and whistled his own tune. It was not a sing-along, and here and there he forgot a note. But one thing you have to give him, this European Prime Minister can do without a dog whistle.