“During the production process, I try to create situations in which unexpected and magical things can happen”
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Hey! My name is Peter Jelle, but most people call me PJ.
I grew up in a small town in the Netherlands. My father was always playing records in the house: JJ Cale, Eric Clapton, Bob Marley and Neil Young.
But the moment I really fell in love with music was when I was around 12 years old. I was staying at my uncle’s house and he showed me two CDs: Dr. Dre’s The Chronic and Cypress Hill’s Black Sunday. I can still vividly remember hearing that irie synth line on Let Me Ride that always reminded me of the sound of a Christmas card that plays music when you open it.
My sister was into hip hop too, and she would make me custom cassettes with music by 2Pac, Nas, 50 Cent and Eminem.
When I was 19, I started looking up on YouTube how my favorite beats were made. This introduced me to the art of sampling. I bought a sampler and a record player and started going to record shops to search for small pieces of music to use. This opened up a whole new world of different genres.
After a couple of years of making beats full-time and taking trips to New York to collaborate with underground rappers, I felt ready to explore a new path. In 2020, I started producing music for the world of advertising at Sizzer Amsterdam. There, I learned how to collaborate with artists from different genres, and how to make music serve a story on screen.
What I’m always chasing in my work is authenticity. I look for ideas that not only fit a brief, but spark something in me as a music fan. I collaborate with artists who live and breathe the genre.
During the production process, I try to create situations in which unexpected and magical things can happen, because I believe music with that ‘something special’, the kind people really connect to, can only come to life in those moments.
