Origin Story
Radio TNP / Radio Tempo Não Pára (Portuguese for Time Does Not Stop) is an independent online radio station with a physical studio in the North of Amsterdam, established in 2018.
Our radio station started off as a present in the form of a mixtape on a cassette tape from one best friend to another. The name, Radio Tempo Não Pára, was invented by the mother of the initiator, symbolizing the current lengthiness and future endlessness of their friendship. Friendship is what our station started from, and is what it will always represent.
Both friends continued making mixtapes on cassettes after that, giving them away to friends, family and their favorite DJs. After noticing that not everyone had a cassette player, the fictional radio station moved online. From here, the community started rapidly expanding and became the platform it is today.
With live broadcasts every Friday through Sunday, our team aims to highlight excitings sounds to a broad audience while facilitating a consistent listening experience through day-specific themes or sound palettes programmed around our residents. We are dedicated to giving young, upcoming talent a podium, which is why on Sundays, our programme focuses exclusively on radio makers under the age of 28. Even more so, we are dedicated to being an inclusive platform, not just by age, race, gender, etc., but also socio-economic status. For this reason, we have a program in place where our supporters can become monthly donators, and from this pool of money, we compensate travel costs for radio makers who might not have the financial freedom to visit Radio TNP. Our slogan is Sounds & Stories For All Ears, and we always try to find new ways to do this sentence justice.
Radio TNP operates as an independent, entirely self/community/publicly-funded non-profit foundation with a flat hierarchy. Our dedicated team consists of musicians, researchers, scientists, artists, filmmakers, students, writers and DJs, all operating voluntarily with a smile.
Our cozy studio, located in the North of Amsterdam - next to Klaproos - features, among other things, a high fidelty soundsystem, custom booth and quarterly art exhibitions. Most importantly, our doors are open to anyone who’d like to submerge themselves in our music offering, so feel free to pass by at any time.
We love working together with other brands, venues and organizations, so please get in touch if you’re looking for a fun and far reaching collaboration! A long list of previous collaborations includes Oedipus, Dekmantel, Amsterdam Dance Event, De School, The University of Amsterdam, resør electronics, H2O Sportswear, Piña Fesival, Cinetol, Garage Noord, Skatecafe, Schietclub, murmur, NAR, POING, Borisov, Taverno, De Vrolijkheid, Van Gogh Museum, Aida Youth Center, DOCK Youth Center, The Hox, INK Projeto, Open Air and Huis Marseille.
Previous Projects
Besides collaborations with other brands, venues and organizations, our team has run exciting independent projects that align with our core values and interests. We are often looking to fill a gap in the landscape of (events related to) radio, music or film. Below is a selection of projects we are most proud of throughout previous years.
Talent in Bloom Program. How many times have we heard stories about exceptional talent who struggle to get the right opportunities beyond performing at radiostations or houseparties. In the Talent in Bloom Program, we identify exceptional, young talent below the age of 28, couple them with an experienced mentor and support them throughout an entire year with building a solid (online) resumé, exposure, network and promotional as well as communication skills to excel - and eventually claim a well-deserved spot - in nightlife*.
Radio Workshops for Refugees. In collaboration with Stichting De Vrolijkheid, who’s mission is simple - make a positive impact and put a smile on people’s faces who need it the most -, we organize a yearly one-week long radio workshop for refugees. During this workshop, we practice concepts like scripting, storytelling, preparing a playlist and playing on professional gear. The week ends with live broadcasts from our radio.
.radio festival. The first modern online-radio festival of Amsterdam - and the Netherlands - which we organized at Skatecafe. The day opened with a radio market where colleague stations Dublab (Berlin), Radio Sofa (Paris) and Stranded FM (Utrecht) joined us to sell merch, show their projects and talk collaboration, alongside two interactive workshops: one on how to start your own online radio station - the technology, costs and roles behind it - and one on making a positive impact on the world with an online radio platform. In between, we held a panel talk with Coco María, FAUZIA, Nosedrip, Ondula and Rebecca Vasmant about what radio can mean for an artist's career, for community building and for the wider musical landscape. The night closed with radio-style club sets by those same radiomakers and an extensive list of Radio TNP residents - sets that could go anywhere, with discovering new music at the centre and no need to build towards a climax or conform to a certain "clubsound". The entire festival was broadcasted live to the rest of the world.
Archival Resistance. A film screening series at Cinetol about the role of music in resistance, exploring how sound safeguards collective memory in regions marked by political turmoil. We curated it with artist and designer Sarah Saleh, who lent the title from her research on chants and slogans from Lebanese protests. Screened films were The Reel no. 21 aka Restoring Solidarity (Japan/Palestine), Beats of the Antonov (Sudan) and Taste of Cement (Syria), each followed by a Q&A with the director and DJ-sets picked to intersect with the theme. Earlier editions of film screenings doubled as fundraisers, raising over €26.000 for the Aida Music School in Bethlehem and a school in the Chapadão favela in Rio de Janeiro.
2 Worlds 1 Sound. This project was aimed at bringing contrasting communities closer together. Specifically, we focussed on young people who are familiar with Amsterdam’s nightlife and people with a background in one of 7 cultures that make up the largest non-Western immigrant groups in Amsterdam (Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Surinam, Turkey, source CBS). We did this by organizing 7 events at Garage Noord and Skatecafe where a DJ played together with a live musician who played a traditional instrument from the respective culture. With this combination, we created opportunities for dialogue and building bridges, overcoming prejudices about nightlife*.
Emotional Audiovisual Retail (EAR). Connecting Amsterdam’s club-scene and creative youth with locals to initiate dialogue about emotional audiovisual experiences by curating 4 DJ-sets in a Turkish supermarket - with the DJ equipment right inbetween the fruits and veggies. Invited artists were DJ Marcelle, Mendel, Sekan and Palestina Robotica. We promoted the event in four different languages (English, Dutch, Turkish, Arabic) to reach locals in their own respective language. We realized the concept and poster design in collaboration with artist Felix Sandvoß. To watch back the live-streams, click here**.
* supported by The Amsterdam Fund for Arts (AFK)
** supported by the Municipality of Amsterdam in District East
Curated by Radio TNP
While we’re proper nerds about everything online, we love offline experiences of music more than anything. Our team loves curating clubnights, listening sessions, festival stages or boat parties. Here are some of our personal highlights.
Stage at Piña Festival in San Remo, Italy. The old neighborhood of San remo, the so-called Piña, has seen a trend of the younger population moving away to bigger cities like Milan. To show the younger generation that the city is still full of life and opportunities, the founders of Piña Festival organize a series of events throughout the summer. The festival offers a beautiful curation without resorting to any big name bookings and rather focusing on exceptional, under-the-radar selectors and live acts with an ever warm musical undertone. Radio TNP was invited to host a 3-day stage for two years in a row, all broadcasted live with live social media coverage through one-to-one interviews with the booked artists or material shot during the sets.
Amsterdam Dance Event. Since 2021, we’ve been active in the ADE chaos with honestly too much to even write about. During every edition, we love to focus on international bookings or sounds that are not often found in the nightlife of Amsterdam - think of names as Gilb'R, Giu Nunez, Raphaël Top Secret, Sophie McAlister, John Gómez, ramzilla, soFa elsewhere, etc. Another important element is live music, for which we were previously joined by musicians/bands like Lord Tusk, Devon Rexi, CV Vision, Istanbul Ghetto Club or Baby’s Berserk. All of our editions were in collaboration with Kikuno, to provide our dancers with S-tier custom sound.
If you’ve got a space, stage or vessel you’d like us to curate, get in touch!