Ode to Hendrika Elisabeth Jansen | Zwarte Riek

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You don't get more Amsterdam than the life of Rika Jansen. Her childhood took place on the streets; the Lindengracht and the Herenmarkt. She made her name as a singer in Carré and the Rembrandtplein theater. Her striking raven-black hair earned her her stage name Zwarte Riek.

On October 8, 1924, Amsterdam fishmonger Johan Leonard Jansen and his wife Hendrika Elisabeth Donker had a third child: Hendrika Elisabeth, call sign Rika. Two more children would follow. With five children it was hard work; money was always a major concern. Dad sold fried fish on the Lindengracht. Ma helped in the fish stall and earned extra money by standing behind the bar in neighborhood pubs. With parents always working, children could roam the city. So it happened that as a young girl Rika fell into the water of the Geldersekade and contracted typhoid fever and Weil's disease. 

Rika attended the Christian school on Lindengracht and was a good student. But at thirteen, she had to go to work because there was no money for further education. Her first job was at a cigarette factory in Amsterdam-North, after that she worked on the assembly line at the Honig company in Koog-Zaandijk. Meanwhile, Rika dreamed of being an artist. Together with her oldest brother Leendert, she formed a tap dance duo that performed at weddings and neighborhood parties. On stage she really came alive!

During the war, Rika had a relationship with a married man who was deported for the Arbeitseinsatz. When she turned out to be pregnant by him, a childhood friend offered to marry her. That happened in 1944. Two months later, Rika gave birth to a healthy daughter. The marriage did not last. Rita was young, she did not want to be a housewife but wanted to discover the world. 

In 1947, Rika was offered to participate in an acrobat number by her aunt-in-law Greetje Boltini. As a duo, the ladies got a contract with a dance company in Haarlem. It was the owner whose long black hair gave Rika the idea of having her perform as the Portuguese singer Rosita Lavièro. That went well until one evening she was unmasked by a group of Amsterdam people who recognized her as the daughter of the man from the fish stall. From that moment on, Rika didn't want to pass for a Portuguese.

And she didn't have to, because through the grapevine Rika got the chance to participate as a singer in a variety revue in theater Carré. It was the beginning of a singing career. With her red baaien skirt and white blouse, she gained success as a singer of the Jordaan repertoire from 1956 under the name Zwarte Riek. The song 'M'n wiegie was een stijfselkissie', written by her life partner and manager Kees Manders, became (and still is) her biggest hit.

Well into the 1970s, Rika was in the spotlight. At her bar Moulin Rouge and at the Rembrandtplein theater, she performed in glittery dresses with towering feather headdresses. She also did shows abroad, for example in Cannes. With the sensitive song “Amsterdam cries,” also written by Kees Manders, she also showed a very different side of herself. In it, she sings of the Jewish atmosphere that was so characteristic of Amsterdam's inner city before the war.

Kees died in 1979. Rika's career goes down the drain. She moves from Amsterdam to Zandvoort and then to southern Spanish Fuengirola. She marries once more, she divorces again and finally returns to Zandvoort where she dies on January 21, 2016, she will be 91. 

Resources used:

Zwarte Riek - Wikipedia

Jansen, Hendrika Elisabeth (1924-2016) (knaw.nl)