Jester, master of absolute rhyme or fake Štěpán Kozub? It is said that the entertainer Jiří Krhut reveals his true self in the song Zatahuju popek, but he shows off otherwise. “I wouldn’t want listeners to see what’s going on in my head when I’m talking to someone, because I see the words in different directions,” he explains. How does he know what kind of humor will work for which audience? How was his desire to entertain crowds born? And why is it difficult to rap in Czech? He answers in an interview for Radiožurnál.
Guest Lucie Excellent
Prague
14:41 August 17, 2024 Share on Facebook
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Jiří Krhut | Photo: Kateřina Cibulka | Source: Czech Radio
Do you know Cimrman and do you know that Cimrman-librettist was most concerned about the issue of rhymes? When did you realize you could make a living from rhymes?
I have been writing poems since I was a child. I enjoy rhyming, I enjoy absolute rhyme. Cimrman had the absolute rhyme “the clock strikes four”. For example, in the book Krhutoviny, which we are talking about here, I have a poem “with the chess players in Tahiti, you would come to a move too”. It’s actually an absolute rhyme, but made up of three words.
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I have clues and improvise the rest. I have 70 percent of the performances written, explains Jiří Krhut
I’m still typing something on my phone. I hear something somewhere and write it down right away. My brain works in such a way that when we’re talking, I hear a lot more between the words… I wouldn’t want the listeners to see what’s going on in my head when I’m talking to someone, because I see the words in completely different spins.
But I enjoy the Czech language in general. I am a former teacher, although I taught English, but I am close to languages. And it really bothers me when someone uses Czech, either in songs or in lyrics. Czech has an accent on the first tense, on the first syllable.
Unlike English…
Unlike English. When you take rap, an application to Czech rap: the word information has the accent on mation, doesn’t it. But if you say, “Hey, give me the information,” it sounds really funny. That’s why it’s really difficult to make a good Czech text for a Czech rap or a Czech song.
I have a song where I make fun of it, because Ostrava people speak with an accent on the penultimate syllable like Poles, we are close to Poland there.
You’ve said that you don’t want the audience to pick up on what’s going on in your head when someone else is talking. You probably shouldn’t have said that. Who are you? A fifty-year-old man who says about himself that he always looks forward to work, that he loves the job, that he likes to play with words, that he likes to play, that he can’t sleep because of the sheer excitement? What are you running from, Jiří?
Hon, it’s just that I actually found myself in the fact that I was a teacher for 18 years. And to teach well, I think you have to entertain students. I actually did a one man show in front of a blackboard in English and then I found out that I can do a one man show in front of an audience.
I ask you: Have you found your Native American name in your life? who are you
The one who speaks.
Great. The one who speaks. The one who does the interviews.
It was originally The One Who Is Beautiful, but over time I renamed myself.
So you just changed the totem.
When I Married My Sister He jumped over fire until he burned his moccasins…
And I found myself an Indian name, One who likes to show off. And I don’t really care if it’s with a guitar in my hand or on stage, in a change of clothes, in various skits, or when I’m making any kind of joke. So I have fun when I can have fun and it makes me feel really good.
It’s actually selfish because it makes you feel good when other people are having fun – you’re actually doing it for yourself, not for those people. When you give a gift, Honzo, you look like you’re nice, but you give a gift because it makes you feel good. It’s still so selfish, but in a positive way.
Middle age resignation
I’m pulling in the navel is what? When you’re done with shrimp?
Zatahuju popek is a song from the album of the same name, which I just released. It’s such a statement. About five years ago, both my parents left one after the other and I had a big change, a kind of mid-life crisis. Are you experiencing a midlife crisis? Or are you still there a bit?
I wanted it to show the inspiration of the time and a sense of defiance and hope, she says about the title song of the film Vlny Farna
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No, no, no, I’ve already gotten over it and I really wish you would get over it. It’s a very relieving feeling, Jiří. I understand that you are in that medieval tension right now.
You said I’m fifty years old and I have to defend myself. I’m not fifty yet, I’m 49 and a half. That’s like saying you’re 61.
That would cut you off by three years, to your disadvantage. But seriously.
But seriously. Zazatuju popek is a song about what I really am. In fact, in that song, I say out loud what I am like and how I feel. I compare it a little with my dad, what he was like, and I notice only now – when I’m older and older and I know what my dad looked like in his old age, what he did, how he behaved, how he reacted – I completely see myself as a clone, as I have since my mom’s
So I dedicated it to my parents. But it’s not a cry song, it’s a statement.
Jiří, how do you test your audience? When you go on stage, you know right away: will it work today?
If I may be blunt, I’ll say you’ll know who “ee” is right away.
Morseovka.
Eh. And at the end of T.
The audience can be different and I know right from the start if they will go for the first one, for the humor that is a little above the surface, or if it is a more intelligent audience that they need not to laugh at the first good thing, but to go somewhere around the corner.
I already have a sense of smell that can be funny. When I laugh at it, I feel that people will laugh at it. Of course, it can happen that it goes wrong, because sometimes you perform in interesting corners of the country, and sometimes even the Ostrava dialect that I use here and there does not reach those people.
How does he compose his performances and who do they mistake Jiří Krhut for? Listen to the entire interview conducted by Jan Pokorný, the audio is at the beginning of the article.
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